


Birds of Prey

by zsomeone



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2018-03-17 00:36:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3508574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zsomeone/pseuds/zsomeone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Non-slash AU, set at some undetermined date far in the future.  They’re no longer fully human.  Their names are different at this point, they unfortunately won’t remember their real names for a while.  Nathan’s POV.<br/>I’m not going to tell you how or why anything happened at this point, because they don’t know yet.  None of them can remember very much.  The print on the shells isn’t really visible from the outside due to a buildup of dust and grime on the tops.  That’s as much as you need to know right now.</p><p>This has art, <a href="http://zsomeone.deviantart.com/art/Birds-of-Prey-336929971">you can see it here</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Awaken

_I can't remember anything_   
_Can't tell if this is true or dream_   
_Deep down inside I feel the scream_   
_This terrible silence stops it there_

_Back in the womb it's much too real_   
_In pumps life that I must feel_   
_But can't look forward to reveal_   
_Look to the time when I'll live_

_Fed through the tube that sticks in me_   
_Just like a wartime novelty_   
_Tied to machines that make me be_   
_Cut this life off from me_

_Now the world is gone I'm just one_   
_Oh god, help me_

Metallica- "One" 

 

Awareness.  
Thick fluid, wet, around me.  
Eyes squint open, a cracked shell, faint glowing.  
I want out!  
Push where it’s cracked, break it!  
The crack is bigger, the fluid drains.  
A single word, I can read it somehow even though some characters look wrong.  
I don’t know how I know this.  
NAHTAN. My name? I think it may be.  
Break the shell, break it all away.  
Finally the last piece gives, and I roll out onto the sloping stones.   
Landed on something soft, don’t know what. Wet and naked.  
Eyes are finally focusing.  
Big stone room, made out of rocks.  
Chest itches, I scratch-  
PAIN.

Everything comes into sharp focus. I look at my hand, I have claws, or talons or something. I guess I forgot about them, and now I’m bleeding but I don’t think it’s too bad. I don’t know, it’s hard to tell.  
There are more egg shapes like the one I broke out of, three are slowing softly and one is dark. They’re all on some sort of stand, I guess mine was the only one that fell over?  
The ground shifts beneath me with a strange groan, this can’t be good. I need to see if there’s anyone in those other eggs, and I need to get out of here.  
Wherever here is.   
Somehow.

Pushing myself up, whatever I landed on comes up with me, wet and sticky. I reach around and grab it to pull it off, but...  
Wings. Huge, dark, dripping _wings_. Why am I so surprised? Okay I have wings, that’s kind of cool I guess. And I must be way more messed up than I thought to not remember, I wonder what happened to me? Why was I in that egg thing?  
But I need to see if there are any others, need to know if I’m alone.  
I don’t want to be alone.

The ground is fairly steep, but I can walk up it without too much difficulty.  
The dark egg first, if there’s anyone in that one they’re clearly in some sort of trouble. I can make out a form, another like me. There are tubes going into him, did I have those? I guess they ripped out when I fell. He doesn’t look alive.  
I find the fastenings and rip the top of his egg open, the draining flood threatens my traction but I manage not to slip.  
He is still, completely still. I put a hand on his chest, being mindful of my claws, and try to feel a heartbeat. There is nothing.  
But then I feel a flutter, and it picks up a regular beat. I guess he’s alive then? The shell has letters like mine, IKOT.

Okay, so the lights matter for some reason, and you wake up when the shell is drained. I guess mine leaked out enough I could wake up?  
One of the other shells is flickering now, getting ready to go out. I need to open them all as fast as I can. I make my way to it, the closest one, and rip it open, another smaller male. His shell reads SELKCIP, I try to remember that because it’s important somehow. I check for his heartbeat, it’s slow but it’s there.  
Moving on, I open SELRAHC and ECAFREDRUM, both also males. I don’t bother checking them because their lights were still steady and I think that means they’re fine. I think there’s another egg I can’t see, maybe more, that glow is coming from behind a pile of debris.

I climb over the fallen stones carefully, the uneven surfaces hurt my bare feet.  
There are two more eggs on this side, One glowing and one smashed and empty. There could be more under the rubble, but if there are, anything they contained is dead. I note that the smashed egg is dry and dusty, if there was ever anyone in it they are very long gone. I open the other, RAAGSIWKS, and for the first time wonder if maybe I’m dead. This is a fucking _angel_ , I’ve seen picture of them. Somewhere, I can’t remember, but I look at him and the word is in my head.   
But he has claws like me, that doesn’t seem right.  
Confused, I climb back to the top of the pile where I can see all of them and sit down to wait.  
Either they’ll wake up or they won’t. I hope they do, I feel kind of lonely.

How long is this going to take? How long did it take me to wake up? I’m not sure at all.  
My own wings are black, at least in this dim light, but the others’ are different colored. Selrahc and Ecafredrum have about the same color, really dark brown. Selkcip has dark wings too, though they seem to have a reddish tint. The other one, Ikot, has light wings, brown or something. For some reason the color is a little hard to make out. And then there’s the angel on the other side, with those pale, gold shaded wings.  
He’s probably not really an angel. Raagsiwks, he’s got the strangest name of us all.  
I’m proud that I already can remember the names.

Who are we, and why are we special? We must be important, only important people get put in those things, I know that from movies. I’m not actually sure what a movie is... it’s like some parts of my brain know stuff the rest of it doesn’t? Maybe it’s because I just woke up?  
There’s some sort of locker against the wall, maybe there’s something in it. None of them are moving yet and sitting here watching them is boring, so I climb down and go over to it. The latch is rusty and resists, but I get it to open. Just a jumble of clothes and shoes, but I need some of those so I dig through the mess. Maybe it was neater in there before everything went sideways?  
I find some pants I think will fit and slide them on, curling my toes under so my claws won’t snag the material. They’re short compared to the ones on my hands, but still hooked and sharp. I’m not sure how they’ll work in boots, but I try on the biggest ones I can find and the fit is better than I expected.

The floor groans and shifts again, I really should get out of here but I still don’t want to go alone. Will they ever wake up? I climb back up on the pile to watch, it’s much easier with the boots on.  
The angel sits up suddenly, stand and staggers, then stumbles down the slope to crash into the wall. Yeah, definitely not an angel, I guess he got up too fast. “Hey, you okay?”  
He looks up at me, seemingly annoyed with himself. “Ja I t’inks so.”  
“There’s some clothes and stuff over there.” I point, he probably can’t see the locker from where he’s at. “If you want some.”  
He just nods and stays where he is, leaning against the wall.

After a few minutes he climbs up to the cabinet, digging out some clothes. Like me he disregards the shirts, how the fuck are we supposed to wear a shirt with these huge wings in the way? Dressed, he moves toward the others and I just watch him since I don’t have any ideas what to do.  
Okay, apparently he doesn’t either, he’s just standing there.  
Selrahc and Ecafredrum move almost at the same time, Ecafredrum falling off his thing and rolling down into the wall like I did, and Selrahc sitting up but not trying to stand. Ecafredrum gets right up and treks back up the slope, using is toe claws to grip the stones. Huh, why didn’t I think of that? Maybe because I was distracted and didn’t get around to looking at my feet closely at first.

Selrahc is looking up at me funny. “You’re injured.”  
“Yeah I know, I accidently scratched myself.” He just nods and examines his own talons, then his wings. “Uh, there’s clothes over there.”  
“Thank you.” He stands, moving carefully, and makes his way to the cabinet. Ecafredrum joins him, and quickly chooses his own clothing. Selrahc takes longer, but eventually puts on a pair of plain old jeans and some boots.  
Everything shifts again, and they all look at me like I’m some kind of expert. “Uh, that keeps happening? It’s probably not good.”

The little one speaks, I hadn’t realized he was awake. “Where tha feck am I?” At least he has the sense to sit up slowly, taking stock. “I’ve gat... wings. An’ I can’t scratch my balls, thet kinda sucks.”  
He’s funny. “Hey, clothes over there.” Damn, it’s a good thing it wasn’t my balls I scratched! I hadn’t even thought about that, I could have like, neutered myself.  
“Thanks, dood!” He makes his way over there more surefootedly than the others, I wonder why that is?  
“Don’t thank me, I didn’t put them there. Or at least I don’t think I did, I can’t remember much of anything.” Why don’t I remember anything?  
Selkcip dresses, it’s funny how there’s something to fit all of us. Maybe these are our real clothes?

One more, the one whose light was out. I’m still not sure he’s going to wake up, I opened his first but all the others are already up. None of them seem completely alert yet, but hell even I don’t think I am and I have a head start on them. They’re mostly just standing around. At least they put clothes on.  
Then there is another shift, this one more serious, causing the guys to scramble to keep their footing and throwing the last one to the ground.  
I expect him to roll down and crash into the wall, but he spreads his wings and stays face down where he landed. I guess the impact woke him up? Good reflexes or something, with the wings.  
He pushes himself to his hands and knees but doesn’t try to stand, and keeps his wings pressed to the ground for balance.

“We need to find a way out of here!” Selrahc is scanning the walls.  
Oh right, he probably can’t see the door from over there. “There’s a door on this side. I haven’t tried to open it yet.”  
Ikot crawls over to the clothes and dresses, then shakily stands, still using his wings for balance.  
I climb back down and we all make our way to the door. The lights in the room (emergency lights of some sort?) blink and then go out, leaving us in complete blackness. Shit, they weren’t very bright at all, but they were a lot better than _this_. I reach out and touch stones, where the fuck is the door?! It should be right here!  
Feeling along the wall, my hand touches wood and then the cold metal handle.

It opens, it’s not locked. That’s good. I can see a faint glow in the distance, but it’s not enough for me to make out the condition of this room or the floor. But we don’t have a choice. I start toward it and they follow me, I can hear their feet on the stones. I know we need to hurry but I can’t, I can’t see anything at all. Just focus on the faint light...  
The floor is amazingly clear of debris, but maybe it rolled down against the wall?  
A staircase, the light is a staircase. It’s as sideways as everything else, making it very awkward to climb, but I know that once I get to the top I’ll be able to see again.  
Behind me, there are faint curses as they stumble on the stairs. I guess I’m blocking most of what little light there is.

I step out into the room, moving out of the way so they can all come up too. A dusty stone ruin, with a jumble of objects down against the wall that may have once been furniture. There are windows here, no glass or anything but that’s where the light’s coming from, all I can see is fog. I don’t think the ground is very close. Yes we all have wings, but I at least am not willing to trust them when I have no memory of ever flying.  
Ikot edges carefully down the slope, I guess he wants a closer look. He’s slipping in the dust and loose mortar, but managing to keep on his feet somehow.  
Until he slips again.

He manages to spread his wings in time, catching the sides of the window frame and holding on until he can get his feet back on the ledge. Then he pushes to the side and leans against the wall, shaking. “I can sees the ground just barelys, it’s ways, ways down there.”  
The kid’s got damn good instincts with the wings, I’ll give him that. But what do we do now?  
Selrahc has moved farther into the room, staying high against the wall. “We’re clearly resting on something, if we can find a window on the other side there should be ground below us. There’s another door over here.”  
We can’t stay here, it probably only a matter of time before this whole building goes over the cliff or whatever.

Ikot crawls back up, staying where there’s _not_ an open window just below him, and we all make out way to the new door.  
It doesn’t want to open, but a brace my shoulder into it as well as I can on this incline and push, and it gives with a scraping sound. We all climb in. It’s a hallway, almost as dark as the room we started in, but there’s faint light coming from a doorway or something a little way down. I automatically head for it, anything is better than this darkness. At least we don’t have to worry about falling out of windows right now.  
The tilt is so bad I’m not sure if I should be walking on the floor or the walls at this point.

It’s not a door, it’s another hallway. But there’s brighter light and some sort of room at the end, and we’re trying to find the other side of this place, so I head up.  
It’s another room, or two rooms that are sort of together I guess, there’s a really wide archway into the higher part, which has windows. And the light is changing, the sun is setting fast. We need to get out of here before it gets dark.  
If we even can, the floor tilts further. I climb for the windows on my hands and knees, trying to use my talons to help me hold on. I think they help?  
From the scratching and scuffling behind me, I guess the others are following my lead.

I catch the ledge and pull myself out onto warped and split wooden planks. It’s a lot easier to stand up now, though this is probably still a bad place to be. Are they all out? Yeah they all made it, now we just need to get down from here somehow. At least there’s enough light left to see which way to go, though it’s hard to make out our surroundings in much detail. A big drop, and back the other way, what looks like woods.  
“Ams we on somes kind of boats?” Raagsiwks has been studying the structure instead.  
Now that he mentions it, it does have a kind of boat shape. But how would a boat get way up here?

“We need to hurry!” Selrahc waves to us and starts jogging down the length of the side.  
He’s right, we can examine this tomorrow when we can fucking see. This thing is _huge_ , it feels like we’ll never get to the end. The glow in the sky is fading, but the old boards are pale and hard beneath my feet.  
Staring at the boards as I do my best to jog along, I’m surprised when I suddenly come to the end. There’s a pile of loose dirt here, sloping down to the nearly invisible ground. Wordlessly we all fan out, and slip our way down the dry and crumbling slope.  
There are sharp cracking noises behind us, dust billows up all around, and the slope loosens into a slide.

I come to the bottom and stumble hard from the footing change, falling to all fours. But I jump back up, still blinded by the dust, and run in the direction I really hope isn’t straight off the cliff.  
Yards away, I turn just in time to see the bottom of the huge ship thing as it rolls off the edge, barely even visible in the last of the fading light. That was close, _way_ too close! At least we made it.  
Shit, at least I hope we all made it, I look around for the others, there’s still a lot of dust in the air.  
I spot Raagsiwks not too far away, those pale wings of his stand out, and start toward him.

That’s as far as I dare walk though, or I might accidently still step off the edge. I’m not sure where it is, I never got a good look. It’s not a straight line, I know that much, so there might be a close piece of it anywhere. We need to find the others, so I just yell for them. “HEY! OVER HERE!”  
There are footsteps close by, and Selrahc is there. “Keep calling them.”  
“HEY!” Ikot and Selkcip walk up together, they must have found each other on the way, but we’re still missing one. “HEY!”  
Just when I’m thinking he might have fallen, Ecafredrum makes his way to us. Good, we all made it this far.  
It’s completely dark now, and we’re all alone on the edge of a cliff.


	2. The Lost Vikings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lost and alone, they try to make plans and survive.

It’s dark, really dark. Maybe there will be a moon later, but I have a feeling that we picked a bad night to get shipwrecked on a mountain, or wherever the fuck we are.  
I mean, I can see a little bit, just not much or very far. The tree line is a dark blur, I don’t really want to go wandering around in there so I just sit down where I am to wait. I’m not tired since I just woke up after I don’t even know how long, so it’s going to be a long night.  
I guess they think the same, because they all sit down around me.

I study them, as well as I can in the darkness. Three of them have long hair like me, but the other two have shorter hair. Which means my hair was always long, or we’d all look the same?  
Your hair and fingernails keep growing when you’re dead, right? I don’t think that’s enough to explain these claws, and besides, we should all have long hair if that was true. Or if we were dead, had been dead?  
But I guess we were alive the whole time. Wait, your hair grows when you’re alive too, and theirs didn’t.  
Now I’m really confused.

“Do any of your guys remember anything? Because I can’t.” I’m hoping it’s just me. Well, it would suck if they all remember and I don’t, but at least then I could ask them stuff.  
Selrahc shakes his head. “I don’t even remember my own name right now. I’d really like to at least know my name.”  
“Anybody?” Damnit, no one does. “Well I know our names. At least I think I do, I read the shells when I opened them.”  
“Well dood, don’t keep us in suspense! Who’m I?”  
“Selkcip.” He has rings of metal in his face, I don’t know why. His hair is strange too, more like ropes than hair.

The rest of them are looking at me expectantly, so I point to them as I name them. “Selrahc, Ecafredrum, Ikot, Raagsiwks. And I’m Nahtan.  
They’re all looking around at everybody else, but we’ll have to wait until morning to get a really good look at each other. I see Raagsiwks examining his own claws, I guess I’m not the only one who doesn’t remember having them.  
I feel like I should say something else, but I don’t know what to say. I wonder if there was anybody else in that place? There could have been more egg rooms, _anything_. It was huge, there’s no way we should have been the only ones there.  
But if there were others, they’re dead now.

I notice that Ikot is sitting with his wings wrapped around him. Raagsiwks, who is closest, nudges him. “Heys, what ams wrong wit’ you?”  
“I’s cold, okays? I don’t gots no shirt or nothings.”  
“Pfft, I amns’t cold. Maybe you ams jus’ overreactsings.”  
Hmm, I’m not cold either. I wonder if it has something to do with him being dead? Or almost dead, when his light was out? “Is anybody else cold?”  
Selkcip speaks up. “Yeah, a liddle bit. Nawt too bad though.”  
Nobody else. That’s proof enough for me, his was the only other light that was going out when I opened them. I probably shouldn’t tell them that?

I feel like they’re my responsibility. I don’t know why but that’s how I feel, so I do the only thing I can to help. “Uh, you two. Come sit in my wings, I think I’m pretty warm.”  
They do, and I fold my wings around them as well as I can. It’s like I don’t know how to move them right? Ikot rubs his face against my feathers like a cat, snuggling against my arm. Selkcip just sits close, and doesn’t seem cold anymore. This is all pretty weird but I don’t mind much, at least I’m good for something.  
Even though I can’t remember them, I don’t think we’re strangers. I think we’ve worked together for a long time, I just don’t know what we did.  
Maybe I’ll remember someday.

Ecafredrum is rubbing his chest and stomach with an odd expression.   
“Hey, are you okay? Are you hurt or something?” I’ve noticed that he has words on it, I can’t see them now but I did before, but I don’t think they should hurt or anything. Maybe he landed all wrong when we hit the ground?  
“It’sch all schmooth. I don’t know, it juscht feels like it schould be different.”  
I rub my own chest experimentally, careful to avoid the cuts. I don’t know if it feels right or not, there’s a lot of blood in the way. I wish I could wash it off, and I feel like there’s a film on me from the stuff in those pods. Hopefully there’s water near here, and we can clean up tomorrow.

There are faint sounds from the trees, things moving around. This makes me nervous because I can’t see anything, but the sounds don’t come too close. Well at least not yet. I try to catch a scent, but the breeze is blowing the wrong way. I really hope it’s just deer or something and not killer lions or vampires or... Or anything else that hides in the dark and kills you, that’s a lot of different stuff.  
I wonder if I could fend off a lion with these claws? I really don’t think so, they have better ones. And teeth, really big teeth.  
I need to stop thinking about this stuff.

*****

The sun slowly rises, we lived through the night. We’re sitting downhill from where the ship went over, but even from here we can see that there’s nothing left.  
We’re on the edge of a clearing, and off to the side I can see water reflecting through the trees. There’s enough light to see, and I’m sick of sitting here. “I’m going down to that water and washing all this crap off me.” I get up and start down, okay they’re following me. Maybe I used to be their leader? The ground is littered with stones, making me really glad I have boots on.  
We walk through the trees and get a good look at the water. It’s stream or a creek, too small to be a river, but it looks maybe knee deep. Not ideal, but a whole lot better than nothing at all.

I strip and wade in, it’s pretty cold but I don’t mind, the water rushes around my bare legs. After rinsing my hands well, I cup them and drink.  
The others are doing the same, fanning out. I kneel in the water and carefully wash my chest, it’s scabbed over now but I cut it pretty bad I guess. It hurts some when I move my arm.   
How the fuck do I wash my wings? This water’s only maybe two feet deep, and moving fast. I look around to see if anyone else has any ideas.

Ikot seems to, I watch as he faces upstream, then lowers himself into the water. Once his body is submerged, he angles his wings and brings then down until the water flows over them.  
Okay, I can do that. I think.   
Taking a deep breath, I go under. Now for the wings...  
The current grabs them, pulling, and somehow yanking at my injured chest. I come up fast. Fuck it, I’m clean enough.  
I see some of the others flapping to dry their wings, but I’m not even going to try that, mine can just drip dry. They don’t seem to have soaked up very much anyway.

Clean and in decent light, I get my first good look at my wings. They’re black like I thought, but they’ve got this colored sheen to them, kind of like one of those annoying black birds... I forget the name, but they’re loud. I check out the others, I’ve of course noticed the colors but I take a better look. I was right, Selrahc and Ecafredrum really do have almost the same color, though Selrahc has more of a red tint on the edges. Selkcip’s are red and gold, he’s got the coolest looking ones of us all. Raagsiwks’ are shades of gold, and Ikot’s... Well they’re strange. That color really isn’t quite brown or gold like it wants to be, and where the light hits just right they have a green sheen.

I scan our surroundings. There’s nothing but wilderness as far as I can see, at least from this vantage point.   
Okay, so from here all I can really see are the top of the cliff and a bunch of fucking trees, but there’s nothing in sight like, I don’t know, cars and stuff. Or anything else that didn’t just grow where it is.  
Where the fuck are we and how did we get here?  
Deciding I’m dry enough, I put my clothes back on. They’re all doing the same.   
I start back up the slope, and again they’re all following me. Okay I guess I’m the leader, at least for now. I just wish I knew what I’m doing.

We hike back up to where the ship was, avoiding the pile of loose soil. We all fan out along the edge, looking down.  
It’s really far down! There’s a bunch of big rocks down there, and our boat thing shattered on them. There’s nothing much left we can recognize, just scattered chunks of wood and stone. The grey stones from the ship are obvious against the natural brown rocks.  
I hope we didn’t loose anything really useful, because there’s no way we’re getting down to that mess.  
Well, what else is there to see?

There is a city of some sort on the edge of the horizon, tall structures unnaturally neat. We couldn’t see it last night. Cities mean people, right? If there is anyone left to find?  
It looks really far away. The steep drop block out path, and the way around looks long and thick. We’ll have to go _away_ from it at first, that’s the only way down, and it’s pretty much all trees as far as I can tell. I can make out some spots where the trees look thinner, but even in those areas I can’t tell if there’s water down there. Water is important, if we have to follow a river or stream we might end up traveling much farther. If we can even keep our bearings and not just get completely lost.

It turns out that I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about how to reach that city.  
“I says we flies there.” Ikot steps close to the edge.  
Selrahc puts a hand on his arm to stop him. “Ah, we don’t know if we can fly yet, so it wouldn’t be wise to start jumping off cliffs. Our wings don’t seem large enough to me. In any case, we should test them out safely first.”  
Ecafredrum points down the hill to a large sloping rock in a natural clearing. “We can jump off that, it’sch schafe enough.”  
We could fly there a lot easier than we could walk. Faster too. _If_ we can fly.

Ikot runs down the hill and up on the rock, it’s taller than it looks from up here. I watch him closely as the rest of us walk down, curious whether he really can fly. He hesitates at the edge, then spreads his wings and jumps. It looks like he’s going to hit the ground, but at the last second he gets lift, flying across the clearing and awkwardly crashing into a tree. Luckily he wasn’t very high. He jumps right up, so I guess he’s not hurt.  
So we can fly. Or at least Ikot can, even if he’s not very good at it.

Selkcip goes next, flying low and managing to miss the trees. I can’t tell if he was actually steering or if it was just luck.  
Ecafredrum climbs up and jumps, and slams into the ground with a loud grunt. He stands back up. “ _They_ can fly, it’sch not fair! I guessch I’m too fat to fly!” He is kind of fat. He stalks back to stand with the rest of us.  
I spread my wings, testing them, and can feel the cuts on my chest pull. “Uh, I think I’d better wait to try. I don’t want to rip these open again.” At least they’re scabbed over now. Also I’m pretty sure I’d fall on my face, but there’s no need to add that. I’m kind of fat too, maybe they messed up when they were feeding me or whatever?

Raagsiwks walks up and jumps, flying higher than the other two and making a perfect landing on the other side. Well of course the angel can fucking fly. Even if he’s not a real angel, I guess.  
That leaves Selrahc, who manages about as well as Selkcip did.  
I look at Ecafredrum and shrug, and we walk over to where everyone else is together. It sucks that we can’t fly too, or at least not yet.   
But it’s a good thing we didn’t all jump off the cliff.

Well I guess we’re walking then. We have no supplies, no weapons, and nothing at all beyond the clothes we’re wearing.  
They’re looking at me again, I guess I should say something? But I can’t think of anything to say, so I just shrug and start walking. They follow, none of them seem to have anything to say either. I don’t know, I guess we’ll walk as far as we can, or at least until somebody starts complaining.  
The weather’s good at least, if we can find food and water along the way I think we’ll be all right. I don’t know how we’re supposed to hunt with no weapons, but maybe there will be an apple tree or something. Do those grow in the woods? I have no idea.

*****

I’m hunting. I found fresh tracks by the stream, some kind of deer. Different sized tracks, so I know a herd passes this way. I want a deer, they’re good to eat and big enough to last all of us for a few days if we clean it right. I’m not worrying about how I know this stuff, I just know it so I’ll use it. Besides, I’d probably go crazy if I try to figure out where all this is coming from. I mean, my past I guess, but I can’t remember it.  
The sun is setting, so now I just wait for them to come. I crouch, positioning my wings into a makeshift blind. I can’t outrun a deer, so I’m going to have to make my attack count.

I smell them before I see them, and wonder if they can smell me. They don’t seem alarmed as they come into sight though, I guess whatever I smell like... maybe they just don’t associate my scent with anything they know? I want a young buck, if only one will pass close enough to where I crouch.  
The deer spread out, drinking from the stream, then splash across to my side. I see him, the one I want. He’s perfect, well on my side of the trail. He’s going to jump when I do, so I need to try to aim for where I think he’ll be or I’ll miss.  
I spring and he leaps, but I manage to hook my arm around his neck and quickly slash at his throat with my other hand before he can shake me loose.

It’s done, I have my kill and the rest have fled. These claws are pretty amazing, they cut like knives. As if my own chest wasn’t proof enough of that.  
Now to carry him back. On second thought I’m going to clean him first, I don’t know if anybody will eat the guts anyway and it’s important to get all that out so the meat doesn’t go bad. I drag him off to the side, no need to ruin the trail, and slice the underbelly open. It doesn’t take long to pull all the organs out, though I keep the heart. Hearts are just meat, not like some of the other crap, and I’m hungry so I go ahead and eat it. It tastes _wonderful._  
I drape the deer over my shoulder, it’s not easy with wings in the way but I manage, and head back to the others.

They’re surprised I have a deer, I didn’t tell them what I was trying in case it didn’t work out. I shrug it off and drop it in the middle of our current clearing.  
They’re just standing there looking down at it. “What are you waiting for? Eat!” I don’t understand why they’re hesitating, but whatever, I’m hungry. I kneel beside my kill, using my claws to slice out a chunk of meat I can hold, then bite into it. Deer are awesome!  
Maybe they just needed a demonstration, because they all drop and start eating too. Some of them are better at cutting with the claws than others, Ecafredrum has kind of shredded his piece a bit. Doesn’t matter.

We eat all we want, and still have plenty left for the next day or two. I think it’ll keep well enough, I cleaned it fast. It’s good to be full, now we’re just lazy but that’s okay since we had no plans to move on tonight.  
Selkcip sees them first. “We gat company!” He’s pointing toward the trees, and then I see them too, we all do. Wolves, oh this can’t be good!  
“I think they want our deer, if we move away slowly they should leave us alone.” Selrahc is already edging away, Raagsiwks and Selkcip carefully stand as well, easing back a bit.

I know we should let them have it, I _know_ this, but this is my fucking kill and I’m not leaving it! I stand too, but step in front of my deer. The wolves come closer but I hold my ground.  
I glance back, Ikot and Ecafredrum are standing to the sides just behind me, and the others have stopped where they are not far away.  
A wolf approaches me and snarls a warning, I raise my wings in a threatening manner and snarl right back at it. Fuck you wolf, I’m bigger than you are!  
If they all jump me they’re going to tear me apart. Maybe I didn’t think this one out so well, but too late now.

Deciding I have nothing to lose, I let out a load roar and step toward the wolves, they cringe back, uncertain. Encouraged I keep advancing, the wolves quit backing and turn to run so I chase them, still roaring. I can hear the others running along with me, yelling too.  
We drive the pack out of our clearing, but stop just inside the trees. We won!  
I walk back and sit beside my kill, guarding it. I don’t think the wolves will be back, but if they try I’ll run them off again.  
My deer! Mine.

*****

There’s a small field nearby that has a lot of rabbits, Ikot has been hunting them. He’s really good at it, and it’s kind of entertaining to watch him.   
He’s circling the field, staying just over the trees so they won’t notice him. I’ve watched before, I know what he’s waiting for. He wants a big one to get out in the middle because they always run when he dives for them and he needs the room.  
Then he dives, swooping down and driving his talons into its sides, killing it instantly. And all he has to do is flap once and he’s back on his feet, just like that.

We all have different hunting styles. I’ve only hunted deer, and I still stalk and then wait for them. Ecafredrum only hunts slow moving things, the kind of stuff that roadkill is made out of. He favors perching on a low branch, even though he can’t fly, and dropping on them as they pass under him. He comes back empty handed more than anyone else because he won’t move to a new spot if nothing shows up.  
Selkcip likes to hide on the ground and pounce on stuff, although I’ve seen him hunt from the air on occasion. He’ll sometimes bring back odd things like frogs or snakes, but variety is good.

Selrahc often comes back with plant stuff, berries or vegetables and shit like that. I know he can hunt well, from the air or otherwise, but I guess he figures he should collect that stuff because none of the rest of us bother. Well, Selkcip sometimes brings back plant stuff too, but it’s not often.  
And fish, I have no idea how he manages because I’ve never seen him do it, but Selrahc can catch fish. Fish are good, we all like fish.   
Even if I knew how he does it, I probably couldn’t. I’ll just stick to deer.  
Raagsiwks likes to hunt alone, but usually brings back rabbits or different kinds of birds.

We’re making slow progress, hopefully in the right direction.  
Well they tell me we’re headed the right way, and they can fly above the trees and look so I have to believe them. There’s been so signs of people at all so far, just lots of animals. I even found bear tracks at one stop, but fortunately we didn’t see the bear who made them. Even though we scared off the wolves, I don’t want to try that with a bear.  
I’ve seen some kind of big cat too, just the tracks, but I think a cat will leave us alone.

We’ve seen the wolves a few times, maybe the same ones and maybe not, but they leave us alone. Do wolves communicate? Maybe the ones we chased have spread the word and all of them just avoid us now. I think they come into our camps after we leave them, but they’re welcome to the bones of our kills if they want them.  
We rule over wolves, somehow that seems fitting.  
No other wildlife had threatened to eat us yet, but I wouldn’t put it past a bear if we ever see one.

I’m scouting around, checking tracks by the stream to see what’s in the area. It’s always good to know what there is to hunt, and also what to be watching out for. And there on the bank... It’s old and partially obscured, I almost miss it but something about the shape gets my attention. A human footprint, a single human footprint. I search for more but any there might have been are long buried under other tracks.  
There are people somewhere then. It’s not fresh and I can see no sign of a trail so I assume it was just a scout, but this means we’re getting into an area where people live.


	3. Skyhunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You knew that track was leading up to something, right? You’ll find out what. This chapter is longer than the rest, but I had a lot I wanted to cover.

I’ve just noticed something strange. Well pretty much everything seems strange, but it was Ecafredrum stroking his face hairs- moustache? -that made me think about it. Three of them have hair on their faces, three of us don’t. And that’s not changing. I think I used to cut it mine off, and if I rub my face there’s a faint scratchiness, but that’s all. So I guess it doesn’t grow anymore?  
I bet if they cut theirs off it wouldn’t grow back. Not that we have anything to cut it with.  
If I can remember things being different, then that means things have changed. If only I knew what things and how many...

We’ve seen no signs of people yet. I still haven’t told them about the footprint I found, there’s no point in getting their hopes up over an old track when I haven’t seen another.  
We’re trying to make some distance, so I haven’t been hunting. I’ll get another deer when we need a break, it’s easier to stick to small game when we’re on the move. And I’m not good at that, catching little stuff, but I’ll make up for it in deer like always.  
We’ve come a long way already, but there’s still far to go.

They convince me to try to fly. There’s no way I’m going to manage that, but they’re insisting.   
We’ve come to a clearing and the sun is setting, they want to stop for the night and they’ve decided this is a perfect time for me to learn to fly. Apparently they’ve been discussing me as we walked, I wasn’t paying attention. I should probably try to pay attention more often, but I didn’t know they were talking about me!  
I really don’t want to have to do this.  
But my chest is pretty much healed so I don’t have any excuses left for not trying. Fuck!

There’s another big rock here, not as high as some of the others we’ve seen though. That’s good, when I fall on my face like I know I will, I’d rather not fall too far.  
I climb it and stand on the edge, feeling like an idiot. I _know_ I can’t do this!  
But they’re all waiting expectantly, so I just get it over with. I know how stubborn they call can be when they get an idea in their heads, there’s not way I can talk my way out of this so I just spread my wings and jump.  
And slam into the ground hard enough to knock the air out of me.  
I knew I couldn’t do this! I’m too big and too fat or whatever. I push myself up. “I can’t fucking fly alright?! Now leave me alone!”

I stalk off into the trees. I’m worried that they’ll follow and try to reassure me or convince me to try again, but they let me go.  
At least Ecafredrum can’t fly either, that makes it easier to deal with. Not _much_ easier, but at least I’m not the only one who can’t. I wish I didn’t even have wings, yeah they’re cool looking but they’re useless and they get in my way sometimes.  
I think I’m stuck with them though.

I’ve noticed that Selkcip won’t fly when it’s dark. None of them seem to like flying at night very much, but I’ve seen them all do it except him. I don’t think it would bother me, but what do I know, because I can’t fucking fly.  
I know I don’t mind walking around in the dark though. Besides me, Ecafredrum is the only one who seems fine going off by himself at night. The others will if they have to, but they prefer to find a clearing and stay in it until sunrise. We sleep in shifts, because you never know when something will walk up and try to eat you. It’s never happened, but it might, you never know.

I’m sitting watch when Ecafredrum comes back, swinging some fat animal by the tail. It’s hard to tell exactly what is in the dark, but I can see the basic shape.  
He sits down not too far away. “Go to schleep, I’ll watch.”  
“Uh, it’s Selrahc’s turn next.”  
“Scho? I need to clean thisch anyway, Let him schleep.” He sits down a little away from everybody and goes to work.  
Okay, fine. I go to sleep.

*****

They flew off, they come back on foot. They’re dragging a deer behind them, and Raagsiwks’ face and hair are full of blood. There’s even streaks and smears on his chest where it’s dripped down.  
“What the hell happened to you guys?”   
“I lands on de deers jus’ fines, but it tries to kills me, smashes me in de face wit’ de horns. Den Ikot lands too an’ it falls down an’ we kills it. An’ _den_ we finds out we can’ts even flies wit’ dis stupids t’ing, can’ts even gets off de grounds.”  
Selrahc looks both annoyed and impressed. “You guys aren’t heavy enough to bring down deer, leave the big game to Nahtan.”

Raagsiwks goes to the water and rinses all the blood off. The bleeding’s mostly stopped now, and it’s not nearly as bad as I’d thought. Just a split eyebrow, a pretty serious one, but I thought his face was all ripped up under there. It probably hurts like hell but it shouldn’t give him much trouble, all that bleeding will have cleaned it. He got lucky, deer can fuck you up bad. They’re not cute and defenseless, those things can kill you. It’s the feet you especially have to watch out for, but they’ll even bite you if they can. If he hadn’t had Ikot with him to help...  
Me, I just count on my weight to bring them down fast and hope like hell I don’t miss.

We were going to keep moving, but I guess it’s break time now. Thinking I might as well check out the surrounding area, so I slice off a chunk of deer and walk away. I can get more later.  
I head back upstream, we haven’t been taking the time to study the area as we pass through and I want to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Looking for more footprints, those ones I found had to come from somewhere. We follow the stream, or at least keep it in sight, so why wouldn’t they?  
I stop and search every muddy bank I come to, mentally sifting through the animal tracks, looking for anything hiding in the whole mess. Mile after mile and I’ve found nothing.

I’ve decided to turn back, I’ve walked pretty far, but there’s another bank just ahead. Fine, I’ll turn back after this one.  
And there they are! These tracks are old, but not as old as the other one I saw, and there’s more than one this time. At least two separate people, I can’t make out enough of the rest of the tracks to tell if there were more than that. Whoever they are, we’re getting closer!  
You’d think they’d wear shoes. Maybe people don’t wear shoes anymore?  
I’m not going to tell them yet, these tracks aren’t fresh either.

*****

We’ve kept moving, and I sneak off when I can to hunt for more tracks. I don’t know if anyone else has seen them, both Selrahc and Selkcip sometimes hunt from the water, but if they’ve noticed any they haven’t said anything about it. You’d think they would, but then I haven’t said anything so maybe they’re thinking like I am? If they’ve even noticed?  
The latest tracks have been fresher, we’re getting closer to whoever we’re following.  
Or we’re getting into an area where people live, though I at least have seen no signs at all beyond the occasional tracks.

I’m with Raagsiwks when we find her, a woman kneeling naked beside the stream, apparently scooping up water and drinking. After all this time, an actual person! She has her back to us and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know we’re here yet. I open my mouth to call out to her, but a quick hand on my arm stops me.  
Raagsiwks shakes his head and puts a finger to his lips. Okay yeah, we don’t want to scare her away. As silently as possible we move closer. Now I can see that her hair is tangled and matted, and her coloring may be more dirt than tan. But this is the first person we’ve seen, so we keep going.  
We get closer than I expected to when suddenly she freezes. We freeze as well. Slowly, she rises to her feet.

She turns quickly, and we can see that she’s pregnant, but there’s something all _wrong_ about her. She’s too skinny, but that’s not it... I look into her face and something is making every instinct I have scream at me to run. She’s just a little thing, what could she even do to me?  
She lets out a freakish scream and starts creeping toward us, her slow movements are those of a stalking predator. Pregnant or not, something is really wrong with this bitch!  
Uncertain, we hold our ground.

Suddenly she sprints at us, and we turn as one and bolt back the way we came. We charge through the brush, but I can hear her right behind us. She’s really fucking fast! What happens if she catches us? Because that seems a very real possibility!  
Raagsiwks is running beside me, and I don’t even dare look back. I can hear her, too close. “Fly, get out of here!” I yell at him, and in the next stride he’s airborne, safe and heading back to camp.  
I run on, she hasn’t caught me yet so there’s still hope.  
And then suddenly, the sounds behind me are gone. I stop and look back, it’s like she just disappeared or something.

I walk back to where we’re stopped at, and the others look up in surprise. Huh, I guess she must have been even closer than I’d thought.  
“Where ams she?!” Raagsiwks is looking around like she’s going to pounce out of the trees at any moment.  
“I don’t know, she just stopped! I mean, I’m really fucking glad she did but I don’t know why.”  
Selrahc looks troubled, like he’s trying to remember something important. I guess he can’t because he just shrugs. “Raagsiwks said she was pregnant, so there are clearly more of them. Those of us who can fly, we need to start scouting ahead so we know where these groups are and can avoid them, since they’re clearly hostile.”

Selkcip comes over to me. “Dood, he wouldn’t say, what’re they? Jest crazy people?”  
“Uh, I think they’re like zombies?” They’re not really zombies, I know that. Zombies are dead and rotting and usually not very fast, these things are none of that. But they’re not human either, they’re something else, and ‘zombie’ is the only word I’m coming up with for them.  
They look human enough, They look more human that we do, but there’s something really different about them. Or maybe this is just how people act now, whenever now is? Maybe we’re the wrong ones, the monsters?  
No, I won’t believe that. The zombies are bad, every instinct I have tells me that.

*****

We mostly go out in pairs now, for some reason that’s supposed to be safer. I plan on trying for a deer so I take Ikot with me. He can be trusted to stay back and keep quiet when I need him to.  
He’s looking at me funny, like he’s studying me. “I bets you can flies now.”  
“Ikot, you know damn well I can’t fly.” They all know that, they’ve unfortunately seen me try.  
“But you’s lost a lot of weights, I bets you can does it now.” Ugh, he’s going to talk me into making a fool of myself again, I just know it. “Looks, there’s nobody arounds to sees you, and I really really _really_ thinks you can does it. Just tries? I promises I won’ts make funs of you is you can’t does it.”

There’s a big rock up ahead, in another of those odd clearings we keep finding. He points to it. “Comes on Nahtan, I teaches you how!”  
He’s not going to let it go, I can tell. “Fine! Fine, I’ll fall on my face and then you have to shut the fuck up so I can find us a deer.” We walk to the base of the rock.  
“Okays.” He stretches his wings. “You holds them likes this and pushes the air downs when you jumps. Tries it."  
On the ground? Uncertain, I spread my wings and try to copy what he did. He frowns and does it again, oh like _that_. I correct myself, I still don’t think this is going to work but at least I think maybe I can land on my feet instead of my face.

He climbs up and I follow, might as well get this over with. “Okays, you gots to jumps out likes this-“ He holds up his arm at about a 45 degree angle “-and does your wings likes I shows you. Then you flies.” He hops off, flies a short distance, then lands and beckons for me to jump.  
I step to the edge, flapping my wings slowly to get the movement he showed me right. Oh boy. It _would_ be nice to be able to fly...  
There I go getting my stupid hopes up, I know better.  
Ikot is waving for me to hurry up.

I jump, and flap as hard as I can.  
I don’t fall... HOLY SHIT I’M FLYING! It’s not easy but I make it most of the way across the clearing.  
Landing isn’t easy either, I’ve got some speed so when I touch down I almost fall on my face right then. Luckily my wing instincts or whatever kick in and I kind of brake with them.  
Ikot runs over to me. “I knew you coulds flies! You’s goings to be able to takes off from the grounds in no times!”  
I can fly! I can hardly believe I can actually do it.  
But we’re out here to hunt, so I get down to business.

*****

Now that I can fly, at least sort of, I have to help with the scouting. I’m still not very good at it, the flying part I mean, but I can usually handle short distances okay.  
Selkcip came in earlier reporting an abandoned camp not too far south of here, and Selrahc asked me to go check it out with him. He gave good directions, we find it easily enough.   
It’s another of these little clearings, a few big rocks on one side and mostly just grass. They’ve been here though, there are piles of animal bones and obvious (from the air) flattened areas in the grass where they have been sleeping. Faint trails are visible.

There’s nobody at all around, they must have already moved on. We assume they’re nomadic since we’ve never found any houses or anything.   
We land in the middle, near the biggest bone pile. The deer bones are obvious, so they can hunt deer. And other stuff too, but I’m not sure what all the smaller ones are. Even after seeing all the ones Ecafredrum has killed, most of the skulls still look about the same to me.  
I squat down and examine the skulls, they’re all intact. Well they’re not clubbing things, and I don’t think they have claws like we do, so how are they killing them?

“Nahtan!” I stand quickly, they’re back! A whole bunch of them, charging at us from the tree line, fuck! “Fly!” Selrahc yells at me, jumping into the air.  
I can’t! I turn and run, trying to get some lift but too freaked out to be able to concentrate on getting it right. There’s too many! I can’t outrun them for long, I don’t think they’ll stop this time!  
The rocks? The one on the left is maybe tall enough they can’t climb it, if I can make my stupid wings work well enough to help me up I might be safe. I don’t seem to have any other options here, so I swerve toward it. 

I jump as high as I can and flap, and land on my stomach on the edge. Quickly pulling myself the rest of the way on I stand as they all slam into the rock below me, reaching. This isn’t as high as I’d thought it was! The taller ones can almost reach the top, if they jump they can probably pull themselves up. I’m screwed, it’s only a matter of time now. They hiss and shriek, jostling each other aside in their fervor to reach me. Some of the sounds might be language, but it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard.  
One makes a good jump, and starts pulling himself up on my rock.

Selrahc lands beside me, he’s holding a broken branch. There’s barely room for both of us to stand up here. He jabs the thing in the face with the branch, knocking it back down, and starts jabbing at the others as they try to jump us.  
I feel helpless, I want to kick at them but I’m too worried that they’ll catch my foot and pull me down. We shuffle around each other, me trying to stay out of his way and him trying to keep the zombies down. I wish he’s brought me a branch too!

This is the first time I’ve had a chance to actually study these things. Up close there’s no way they’re human anymore, if they ever were. I’ve seen more intelligence in an animal’s eyes, theses things are nothing but hunt and kill. The males, at least the ones that are old enough, all have filthy tangled beards, all of them have a big mess of hair. Knots and bunches, a little like Selkcip’s but there’s no neat order here, just chaos.  
Even the little ones are fighting to get close to me, but they can’t force their way in. A pack of monsters, zombies, they’ll eat me if they can. The ones who jump up are snapping their teeth at me, even though they can’t reach.

“We can’t stay here, you’re going to have to fly!”  
I don’t want to! Jumping from this rock will put me right over their reaching hands, and that’s the best case scenario. I don’t want them to even touch me!  
“I’ll hold them off, take your time!” He’s turning constantly, jabbing zombies.  
Of course he’s calm enough, he can fly away any time he wants! I try to concentrate on Ikot’s lessons, how he showed me. I can’t spread my wings until I’m ready though, or Selrahc won’t be able to keep them off me. There’s just no room up here!

I have to do this. If they pull me down and kill me...  
Ugh, I can’t think like that but I can’t help thinking it! I close my eyes, trusting Selrahc to protect me, and try to concentrate. It would help if they’d shut the fuck up!  
I decide to do this blind, maybe I won’t panic if I can’t see them. I know if I jump more out than up I can get lift faster, but that also puts me closer to them. Maybe somewhere in between then?  
I don’t open my eyes. “I’m ready.” That’s a lie, but I have to say something so he won’t be in my way. Spreading my wings, I jump.

I flap as hard as I possibly can. I can feel them grabbing at my feathers, my legs! I kick wildly, hoping to keep them from catching hold and fight to get out of their reach.  
I have to open my eyes, I know I’ve got to be running out of room and if I hit a tree it’s all over. Fuck, they’re all chasing me! The whole pack! I need more height! I turn, I don’t have enough room to clear the trees, and see Selrahc dive low over them, distracting a few into chasing after him.  
I make it up high enough, and he joins me as we fly away.

As soon as we’re out of their area and they’ve turned back, I go to the ground. It’s more of a crash landing, that was more flying that I can handle yet and I’m just done. We’re not that close to our camp but I’m walking the rest of the way. If we run into more they can just fucking eat me. Selrahc lands too, and we walk together.  
“Nahtan, I’m sorry about that back there.”  
“Why? It’s not your fault.” And it’s not.

*****

I keep practicing, and my flying is steadily improving. I thought I was already strong, but flying uses slightly different muscles. I got sore at first, but now I’m past that and it’s just getting better and better. I have a really hard time trying to take off from a standstill and I probably always will, I’m just too big, but if I have something to jump off of or room to get a running start then I can do it easy enough now.  
And I’ve gotten good at landing, that’s important too.

There’s something I’ve been wondering. “Hey Ikot? Do you think Ecafredrum could fly now?” He’s lost a ton of weight too, I think he looks small enough.  
“Probablies? But he won’ts even tries, I don’ts think.”  
“He might if you show him, like you did me. You weren’t a dick about it.” It would be better if we all could fly, just in case. What if we ran into the zombies and he couldn’t get away? I don’t think he could outrun them, those things are really fucking fast!  
Ikot shrugs. “Okays I try, but if he won’ts does it I can’t makes him.”

I send them out to hunt together the next day, Ikot should have better luck convincing him if they’re alone.  
“Why schould I go with him, I can’t even fly? What am I schupposched to do, carry his rabbits?”  
“Yeah, carry his fucking rabbits. Just go.”  
“Comes on! I saws a real good place nots far from heres!”  
Still grumbling, Ecafredrum gives in and they walk off together. I think this plan might actually work.

It’s obvious when they return, he’s practically bouncing with happiness.   
“Guessch who flew all the way acrossch the clearing? Thisch guy!” He can’t stop smiling, I know how he feels.  
“Oh yous can finalies fly, dat’s good.” Despite his unimpressed tone, Raagsiwks is returning his grin.  
“Congratulations, dood!”   
Ikot turns toward me and gives a very belated thumbs up, he’s proud of himself. Well he should be, he’s a good teacher.

*****

We still mostly walk though. Ecafredrum is flying well now, but he’s just doesn’t seem all that comfortable in the air. Neither does Selkcip, now that I think about it, both of them rarely fly except when they’re sent out to scout ahead.  
When we travel, we walk. All of us, except for whoever’s up there scouting at the time. There are more groups scattered around, but so far we’ve managed to stay far enough away from them and they’ve been no problem.

The bear is scratching its back on a tree, we all stop right where we are. It hasn’t noticed us yet, and we’re far enough away to get in the air in time if we need to, so we just watch it.  
It’s hard not to laugh, this is one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen! He looks like he’s dancing, stepping back and forth and wiggling against the tree. He’s like Stripper Bear! Maybe it’s a girl bear, I can’t tell the difference. It could be a girl bear.  
‘He’ just works better in my head, and guys can be strippers too. I think I knew one who used to do it?

Finally the bear is all scratched out, and he sees us. He freezes, then stands up as tall as he can, staring at us. That’s one big fucking bear! He takes a couple steps closer, still standing tall.  
I know a challenge when I see it, but I’m not going to step out and challenge a bear! I stay in the half crouch I dropped to when we saw him, waiting to see what he’ll do. His claws are _awesome_ , they make my own look puny.  
Apparently deciding we’re neither food nor threat, he drops to all fours, turns, and walks off into the woods.

That was actually really cool, since we didn’t get eaten. It would have sucked if we had.  
Ecafredrum steps in front of a tree and starts imitating the bear dance and we all crack up. He’s not actually rubbing against it, that would fuck up his feathers, but he’s still making a good show of it. Selkcip joins him but the rest of us just watch.  
Once they finally get it out of their systems for now, we continue on our way.  
That was just awesome, I think I like bears.

*****

Now that I can fly well, I’ve changed my hunting style. I usually take Ikot or Raagsiwks with me, they’re the best at this new game. We circle until we find a herd then split and fly down, driving them in the direction of our camp. Hey, the less distance I have to carry it the better. Deer don’t herd very well, but we can almost always push them closer than they were.  
Today it’s Raagsiwks, and we’re having trouble. The deer have veered off and are resisting our efforts to turn them, we’re getting too close to zombie territory. We should be safe in the air though? I don’t want to give up, a deer will feed us for days.

Suddenly they burst from the brush, a whole pack of them! We both automatically fly higher, well out of reach. They grab at the deer who are frantically trying to dodge them, making the rest scatter. I see a few deer go down, and they fall upon them.  
The herd has spilt, a small group is headed in the direction we want them to go now. We drop low again, chasing them. Good thing we didn’t give up.  
Deciding we’re close enough an shouldn’t press our luck further, I choose a deer and drop on it hard, knocking it down and slashing it’s throat with my claws.

The other deer have fled. Raagsiwks lands beside me and helps me clean my kill, then we head back. It doesn’t bother me much to carry the deer over my shoulder like this, I could probably carry a person around this way if I had to.  
“You sees dat house over dere? We shoulds checks it out when we don’t has a deers on you.”   
I didn’t see a house, but I was focused on the herd. We’re getting closer to the city though, I guess it’s about time we find some houses. “Can you find it again?”  
He just nods.

*****

It’s a house, or at least what’s left of one. It’s made out of brick and the windows are mostly either broken or blocked with wood. The roof is still intact though, and it even has a door.  
They’re waiting for me again, aren’t they? I think they are. Fine, I walk to the door and push it open, it drags a bit but it still works. The smell is strong and musty, even with the broken windows letting air flow through. The old stained carpet probably, in fact I’m pretty sure it’s to blame.  
The house is built on a slab, that’s good, we don’t have to worry about falling through a rotten floor. I go in. If we stay, we can just rip out the carpets.  
Funny, I didn’t realize I wanted a place to stay.

There’s not much in this room, just some junk and that terrible carpet. Both windows on one side are completely broken out. I head down the hallway, wanting to see what’s in the other rooms.  
Just a quick look, I can examine them later. Right now I just want to see what all’s here. They’re still letting me lead, just following along in my wake.  
A bedroom, with two mattresses on the floor. The window is blocked and the light is poor, but it doesn’t smell too bad, just stale.  
The next door is a bathroom, it’s so dirty that I slam the door back shut fast. I don’t even want to know what’s in the tub.

Moving on, the last three doors are two more bedrooms and an empty closet. All the rooms have multiple mattresses, I think this was a place that people came in groups. Maybe a hunting cabin or... I don’t know.  
Back down the hall, I go into the kitchen. There’s a table that’s still standing, but I’m more interested in what else I can find. So are they, we all start opening cabinets and checking drawers. There’s not a lot here, I guess others must have come through and taken stuff if there were ever things stored here at all. Or nature did, the few things I find are covered in rust. Maybe they were just crap to start with though, there’s not real way to tell.

“Feckin’ jackpot!” Selkcip is crammed into a little cabinet in the corner, we all turn to see what he’s found.  
Cans, he pulls out cans that whoever else must have missed. But they’re weird, there’s no words on them, the labels are just plain colored paper. Red, yellow, and green, I wonder what’s in them? Cans mean food to me, and if it’s food we should save it for emergencies, but I really want to know what’s in them. We can open one of each color and save the rest. Ikot finds a can opener, but it crumbles in my hand when I try to use it. What the fuck do they make these cans out of? That can’t be healthy.

Now what? I’ve seen monsters open cans with their claws in movies, so it’s worth a shot. I put a claw to the lid and press, it punches through! I try to use it like a knife, working around the edge. Ecafredrum and Selrahc are already copying me, opening the other two cans.  
They’re food! Well we thought they were, but they could have been anything. Some sort of meat, I’m not sure what, what looks like diced vegetables mixed together, and fruit, I think it’s apple bits. We pass the cans around, all tasting the different things.  
So colored cans are good, we’ll have to watch for them and collect what we can find.

*****

We decided to stay at the house for a couple days, the mattresses were just too tempting to not sleep on at least once. This is a good place, now that we’ve ripped out all the carpets. There’s one of our clearings we like nearby, so the hunting should be good. We could use this as a base camp of some sort.  
Of course I still want to get to the city and I know everybody else does too, but this is close enough to come back to.  
There’s an old well here too, right behind the house. That could come in handy. The stream isn’t far away, but the well is right here.

I decide to break into the shed out back, the fact that it’s locked means there might be useful stuff in there that nobody’s stolen yet. The big lock is a mass of rust, but whatever’s under there is really strong because beating it with a rock is getting me nowhere. I’d try to kick it in, but it opens outward so that wouldn’t work.  
I circle the shed, looking for a weak point. There’s no windows and no other door. The walls look pretty solid, but I guess they’re my only hope so I start knocking and kicking on them, listening for a weak spot. I notice a couple of them come out of the house and give me a strange look, but I ignore them.

On the back side I find it, an area that has that dull sound of rotten wood. I knock around on it some more, mapping out where the studs are so I’ll know where to kick.  
I step back and kick as hard as I can. The wood crunches and my second kick puts my foot right through the wall. I keep kicking, trying to enlarge the hole. The rotten wood gives way, but there’s just not enough of it, the biggest hole I can make is too small for me. Maybe if I didn’t have wings, but I do have them.  
So I go get Selkcip, he’s the smallest.

Selkcip squeezes in and starts handing out anything good. There’s a coil of rope that seems in surprisingly good shape, and some plastic buckets with plastic handles, the faded picture on the side tells me they probably once contained cat litter. There’s a bigger plastic bucket, we barely squeeze it out the hole, but it had a metal handle and that’s all broken. Maybe we can use it anyway?  
He’s swearing and throwing things around in there, complaining that everything’s rusted and ruined. Finally satisfied that he’s missed nothing of value, Selkcip crawls back through the hole.

We gather our new things together, we’re taking them with us. The cans are placed in the buckets with handles, if we leave them somebody might take them. We’re planning to save them, the weather’s been amazingly good so far, just the occasional rain shower, but if it ever gets too bad to hunt...  
Dinner is rabbits, Ikot went and grabbed some since they’re small and easy for him to catch. We’re acting like we live here, cleaning out kills away from the house so we don’t make a big mess. One more night here, sleeping on soft beds under a roof, and then we’ll continue moving on.  
Tomorrow we’ll be in the city.


	4. Ghostqueen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finally make it to the city, or at least the edge of it.

We’re finally in the city, or what’s left of it. Most of the buildings seem to be standing, but all are at least a little damaged. The streets, I’m still thinking of them as streets because I have no idea what else to call them, are all grown over. There’s a bit of broken concrete visible every now and then, but it’s mostly weeds. Even some trees growing right in the middle of the roads. Nothing looks very healthy though, maybe it doesn’t get enough sunlight? Or maybe the ground here is poisoned.  
Most of the buildings in this area aren’t more than- I count the windows up- five or six stories high, but I can see some taller ones further in.

There are other things here. The poor ground doesn’t hold tracks, but I can make out distinct paths where things pass through. Zombies or animals, or maybe even people, I don’t know. I’m not sure people still exist anymore, at least not like I’m thinking.  
A few cars are around, just rusted remains. It’s funny how few we’ve seen.  
I’m not completely comfortable walking down here where we can’t see far, but I guess we can always fly away if something jumps out at us.  
We look into stores as we come to them, or at least what used to be stores, but nothing remains but empty shelves and mold.

Raagsiwks picks up something in one of them, it’s some sort of animal skull. I have no idea what kind, most of the time I need the rest of the animal to tell what it used to be. Well, little animals anyway, the big ones are easier.  
I’m wondering why he picked it up, it’s nothing we can eat, but then he attaches it to a piece of rope that he’s wearing tied around his waist. It suits him, somehow, almost like a memory. Maybe it is one?   
We’re looking for a place we can stash our stuff safely so we can explore better. Just because we haven’t seen anything to steal it doesn’t mean it’s not out there.

This building in particular gets our attention, it’s not brick but concrete. The lower floors collapsed or something. I don’t think that kind of thing just happens, even here, I think somebody did it on purpose. To keep something from getting up or down?  
It doesn’t look like here’s been anyone around for years though, and the missing floors mean the roof is safe from anything that might try to get at us. We could actually all relax for a change, and not have to keep watch all night.  
If the roof is intact this could work, we all fly up to check it out.

The roof is flat and made out of concrete. There are a few cracks but it seems safe enough.  
There are rusting metal boxes full of machinery up here, I have no idea what they used to be but they’re big and they’ll make good wind breaks. But the best part is the other thing, I’m not sure what it’s called, a cistern I think? Anyway, it holds water, we have water right here! There’s a regular faucet at the bottom, it’s made out of something that doesn’t rust, and water comes out. I think it’s rain water in there. It’s a good thing we found these buckets and brought them with us.

The door to the inside isn’t locked, so we cautiously go down into the building. The floors seem surprisingly sound, and there are big rooms in here. No doors, I don’t understand why there aren’t any doors but there just aren’t. Maybe they used them for something, the last people who were here? There’s some furniture left, but not very much, and most of it is in terrible shape. We do find enough mattresses for all of us though, we’ll drag them into the biggest room later.  
And more cans! Some of the rooms have cans in them, this is a good place for us, it has everything we need. This can be our base post here.

The top floor seems safe enough but we need to make sure there’s really no one here, so we carefully venture down the stairs. The next floor down is also deserted and also lacks doors. There are some cracks in the floor but I think it’s okay as long as we’re careful. We’ll have to search for supplies, but I think we’ll stick on the top floor when we’re inside. The next floor isn’t completely intact, I can see too much light from the stairwell. We can fly up into that one from the bottom maybe, but we’d better not try to walk around down there. Nothing can get up here unless it can fly though, that’s good.  
Of course we still need to check out the rest of the city.

*****

I like to go out by myself sometimes, I feel like I check through places faster when I’m alone. Right now I’m the furthest away I’ve been yet, I found a stash of cans in one a few buildings back and that encouraged me to keep going even though it’s getting late. I put the cans in the bucket I brought with me, so far it’s all we have to carry stuff in.  
Unfortunately I’m so into my searching that I’m ignoring the weather, and just as I land on the next roof a downpour starts. This sucks, I hate getting rained on! I’ll just get inside and search around until it’s over.  
But the door down is locked, so I’m stuck out on the roof.

None of us like to fly in the rain, it’s really hard. I’m considering doing it anyway when a bolt of lightning changes my mind, I DO NOT fly in lightning! The clouds look like they won’t pass soon, so the sun will probably set before the rain ends. I don’t know if I can find my way back in the dark, I wasn’t exactly moving in a straight line when I ended up here.  
More lightning, with thunder close behind. Well I’m not going anywhere right now, so I sit and hunch my wings up like we do, they make decent rain protection.  
The wind shifts, I turn slightly to keep my back to it, and wait.

When the rain finally ends there’s no light left. Should I try to find my way, or just spend the night up here?  
They’re probably worried about me, and I have no idea how secure this building is. Yeah the door is locked, but that doesn’t mean something from the inside couldn’t open it.  
There’s no moon, the clouds haven’t passed yet. I don’t wanna spend the night here, I’m going to try it. I dump the water out of my can bucket, it took the labels off so they’re all mystery cans now, and shake off my wings. I like how they never get all soggy.

I hope they’re outside, I think I could spot Raagsiwks’ wings even in the bad light, but it’s been raining so they’re probably not. Oh well, I may still end up spending the night on a strange roof, just not this one. I jump off and head in what I hope is the right direction.  
The buildings I’m passing over don’t look familiar, but it’s not until I come to a taller one that I realize I went the wrong way. I land and survey the dark cityscape, trying to get my bearings. I’m near enough to the tallest buildings to see them, so that helps. Over that way, if I go straight that way I should be close.

I jump off and fly on, okay some of this seems right now. I’m pretty sure I’m almost there...  
Something lighter, over to my left. I swerve, hoping it’s what I think it is. If not I quit, I guess I need at least some moonlight to fly around at night.  
Yes! Pale wings stretched out, I found it! He’s out here alone waiting for me, I land, startling him. “Fucks! You ams pracstically invisibles!”  
“Yeah?” I have stealth wings I guess, that’s awesome. “Well thanks for being runway lights. I found cans.”  
“Oh goods.” We head inside, I’m tired and I just want my mattress.

*****

We usually take turns with the hunting, we’re saving the cans of stuff. Deer are too big to drag up here and I’m not good at other stuff, so we’re eating mostly smaller game that the others catch. And it has to be small enough to fly all the way back with, although there are animals in the city, there’s too many places for them to duck and hide so they’re nearly impossible to catch. It’s just not worth the effort.  
Raagsiwks went out alone earlier, I’m we’re waiting for him to get back. We’re pretty good on game right now, but he said he was going to look around and then hunt a little.

Instead of food, Raagsiwks comes back with a little girl. A _human_ girl. People still exist! She’s even wearing clothes. She’s not very big, or he never would have been able to carry her all the way up here.  
“Dood, where’d you git it?” Selkcip tries to get a closer look at her, but she cringes away from him. I don’t think she can understand what we’re saying. She’s just a kid, probably not more than ten. Maybe younger, I have no idea.  
“I finds her all alones, either she gets losts or she run aways.”

“What are we going to do with her?” I mean, she can’t even fly or anything.  
He shrugs. “Keeps her, we don’ts has no ladies.”  
“Sche’sch juscht a little girl, that’sch schick!” Ecafredrum is right, that’s pretty messed up.  
“No yous dildo, we waits until she ams all growed up for dat!” He looks offended that we could even think that about him.  
“Heh, our liddle rooftawp princess.” Selkcip squats down and cocks his head. “What’e yer name?”  
She turns and runs, hiding behind a rusty metal box.

Oh well, it’s not like she can go anywhere. I don’t really like the idea of having to feed her for years, but I guess we’re stuck with her now. I don’t think she even knows English, she doesn’t seem to understand anything we say. Or maybe she’s retarded or can’t talk or something, I don’t know.  
“What’re we gonna name her? She’s gatta have a name.”   
I don’t care what they call her.  
“We can just calls her Littles Goil?” Besides Selkcip, Ikot is the only other one who seems to have any interest in her. Well, until she grows up anyway. I’m not saying I think they’re child molesters or something, because I don’t think that, but... Ugh, just not like _that_.  
“Yeah, thet’s a good name. Liddle Girl is it.”

*****

Little Girl isn’t easy to have around. She won’t talk, but she’ll scream if we get too close to her. She won’t eat the meat we catch. We’ve tried giving her every kind we’ve brought back, but she won’t touch it. We give up and feed her cans, she’ll eat that stuff. It sucks to waste our emergency supply, but what else are we supposed to do? Let her starve?  
I’m really not sure it’s worth it to keep her, I mean yeah she’s a human female and we’d really like some of those, but preferably without having to wait for her to grow up. And I don’t mean we should do her now, that’s just all wrong even if she liked us, but I’d like a already grown one.  
Or at least one that’s not such a picky eater.

We made her a room, or gave her one really, but she won’t stay in it. She tried to go down but of course she couldn’t, we find her standing where the stairs kind of end. She screams at us until we back off far enough, then runs back up to the roof. She spends most of her time up there. I don’t know what she’s looking for, but she’s always looking over the sides. We haven’t seen anybody else, so I don’t think anybody’s looking for her.  
We’re not kidnappers, we rescued her! Well, Raagsiwks did, but we’re all helping now.  
Not that she appreciates it.

Ikot comes back with some sort of doll, it doesn’t even have a face or anything and he’s made it out of some sort of grass, but it’s vaguely person-shaped. I watch as he tries to give it to her, but she won’t come that close to him. You’d think she’d be getting used to us by now, it’s been over a week. He keeps trying, holding it out as far as he can, but she won’t come any closer.  
Giving up, he sets it down and backs away. Little Girl is watching him. Once he’s far enough I guess, she darts forward and snatches up the doll, then runs to the other side of the roof.  
I guess she likes it then? Whatever. Ikot looks happy that she took it.

Overnight something changes. She’s approaching us, not too close but moving in and then backing off again. Which would be a good thing, but there’s just something about it that is making me nervous. And it’s not just me either, I can see them all keeping an eye on her and not encouraging her or anything.  
It’s almost like she’s stalking us. Maybe she’s hungry? We usually don’t feed her this early, but I’ll make an exception. I grab a can, one of the ones with a missing label, and tear it open. Huh, it’s fruit. She backs off as I move toward her. I set the can down and go back to where I was sitting, walking backwards because I don’t want to turn my back on her.

They’re all facing her too, they’ve turned where they’re sitting, we all feel it. Whatever it is.  
We watch as she ignores the can, she’s never ignored food before. Huh, maybe it’s bad? But it smelled fine to me.  
We’re near the edge, and she starts pacing a semicircle around us. What the hell is her problem? Ikot slowly stands, wings held out a bit. Is acting weird contagious? He turns to keep facing her as she paces back and forth.  
We’re all oddly silent, I guess nobody else can think of anything to say right now. We watch Little Girl.

Suddenly she screams and charges toward Selkcip, maybe because he’s the smallest, but Ikot jumps toward her and slams her hard with one wing. She goes down with a mouthful of feathers, and Selrahc and Selkcip are on her quickly, grabbing her arms.  
She spits out the feathers and snarls at them, twisting and fighting but of course she’s no match for their strength.  
“Fucks, She ams one of dem t’ings! And I brings her here!” Raagsiwks looks very distressed by this realization. Well, at least now we know why she was alone, they must have known she was infected and threw her out or something.

I go over to Ikot, who’s checking his wing. “Did she bite you?” That would be bad.  
“Noes, she just gots the feathers. Good thing I uses mine wing insteads of mine arm...”  
I hadn’t realized that wings could make such good weapons, but of course there haven’t exactly been people around to smack with them.  
Okay, but now we have a problem. So what do we do now? We can’t just hold her forever. I guess we could tie her up, but that doesn’t fix anything. Well she belongs to Raagsiwks, sort of, so I ask him. “Uh, what do you want to do with her? Because we can’t keep her now!”  
“Pfft, throws her off de fucksing buildings.”

They drag her to the edge, the rest of us wait where we are. Will the fall be enough to kill her? I hope so, because otherwise... _ugh_. She’s struggling as hard as she can, but we know what she is now. I don’t feel bad about this, but I almost feel like I should feel bad about not feeling bad, if that makes sense.  
They throw her off the building and watch her fall.  
I can hear her hit the ground. Yeah I’m pretty sure that killed her.  
Selrahc and Selkcip nod to each other and walk back, it’s over.

Raagsiwks walks over to the fruit can and picks it up. He shrugs and stabs some fruit with one talon, eating it. Ikot wanders over hopefully, he’ll eat the fruit but what he really likes is the syrupy stuff that’s left in the can after it’s all gone.  
He sits there watching until the fruit is gone, and Raagsiwks hands him the can. He happily drinks the juice, the whole ‘murdering a little kid’ part of the day forgotten.  
Well so much for that plan, I guess. I wonder if she’ll just rot there? That would kind of suck. We’re close enough to the edge of town that scavengers may come drag her off, that would be best. If they even eat those, and I think they must because we’ve never seen a dead one.

***** 

We’ve been working our way further into the city, it’s slow going because there’s just so many buildings. We’ll land on a roof and survey the area, then drop to the street and look inside if it seems safe enough to go in. Most of them have nothing at all useful left.  
Walking through these empty streets, I feel like the last person in the world. Yeah I know there’s six of us, but something about being down here makes you feel completely alone. I guess that’s why we usually scout in pairs or as a group.  
I’m still seeing trails, but nothing that looks fresh or heavy traffic. There’s been no sign of other people.

We find the bees on one roof, there’s the remains of some kind of old shed there and the bees are all in it. Honey bees, they’d made so much that it ran down the walls. I keep my distance but Ikot moves closer.  
“I wants some of that stuffs. I really wants it!” He stops short though, because you know, _bees_.  
It does look good, but just the hum coming from all of them is giving me the creeps. “Try if you want, but they’ll sting you.” There’s regular bees that just sting you, and evil bees that ALL sting you until you die. I don’t know where I know this from, and I have no idea how you tell the difference, but I’m not getting near them just in case.

We find another building further in that has water on it too, like ours. That’s good. It’s more to the middle of the city, but it’s a short building and all the floors are intact so we don’t consider it safe. We could go to it for water if we need to though, instead of having to fly all the way back.  
It’s quickly becoming clear that unless the lower floors are gone, we’re not going to find cans or anything else so we start skipping intact buildings. This is only about half of them, because we haven’t figured out how just much needs to be gone for stuff to still be there.  
We need another base building, something central, preferably the tallest one around.


	5. Kill You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plain old regular person finally appears, and that doesn’t really end so well.

We move to the highest building in the city, it’s pretty much in the center of the town which none of us are really comfortable with, but it works as a base. The lower floors were destroyed by fire, so nothing’s getting up here. Twenty stories high, I counted. The one across the street is seventeen stories, Nothing else is I think much over ten. We can see all around from up here, that’s the good part. The _only_ good part, there’s no water here, and this was an office building of some sort so there’s no beds or anything inside. The roof is flat and featureless, there’s not even a windbreak. And no food, or really much of anything else we can use. There are still windows in the upper floors though, glass in the windows mean, in most of these taller buildings.

We do find a big bucket thing, bigger than the ones we have, and some bowls and glasses. Carrying water from our base building is a pain in the ass, but we usually make Raagsiwks or Ikot do it, they can both fly easily with a full smaller bucket so it only takes one trip for them. We store it in the big bucket.   
We’ve collected a small stash of cans from a few buildings we got into, but we’re still mostly relying on hunting. I’m useless this far from the woods, I was never good at small game and that’s all we can carry all the way up here. I try to make up for it by doing a lot of the scouting.

None of us are comfortable landing on the ground in this area, there’s a lot more old cars and other stuff, way too many places for something to hide and some of us can’t take off well from a standstill if we get jumped. We stick to the rooftops, carefully going down into buildings when we can, but a lot of them are locked here. We think there are people here, real people. We’ve see some signs that don’t fit the zombies, but so far no we’ve had no actual sightings. And I’ve been looking, Little Girl had to have come from somewhere.

I’m standing on the edge of our building, scanning the area. I’ve been concentrating on the ground so much that I almost miss it, a movement in a high window of the tall building across from us. I only saw it from the corner of my eye, and when I turn fully it’s gone.  
I know where it was though and I wait, watching.  
No animal would climb that high, but it may have been a reflection or a trick of the light, I can’t be sure. If it was real, if I wait, I’ll see it again. Like a statue I stand, watching the bank of windows.

There it is! There’s somebody in the building across the street! “Guys! I see somebody, come look!” It was wearing clothes, the zombies don’t do that. Well, not unless they’ve just turned, I guess.  
They join me at the edge, and the person (it’s hard to see much through the filthy glass) ducks back out of sight. He’s on the top floor, so not that far below us. There’s a broken window next to that one, probably in the same room. It’s hard to tell.  
We’ve been looking for people, maybe they’ve been looking for us too? We haven’t been in that building, the roof is locked, but we’ve never seen any signs that people are living there. 

Selrahc steps to the edge. “I’m going to get a closer look, you guys wait here.” He jumps off, flying down toward the broken window.  
The man- I can see him now, he’s a man- steps into the window frame. We’ve found people! There is a glint of something shiny in his hands and some buried part of me reacts, crouching on the edge ready to leap off. Whatever that thing is, whatever is about to happen, I don’t like it! And it feels like a memory, one of those nagging things I can _almost_ recall but just not quite.  
I guess it’s just me, because he’s flying closer now. “NO!”

There is a twang and a thunk, then he’s falling.  
“Charles!” I don’t think, just dive off the roof. None of us have ever fallen from this height, but I think it would kill us. Pretty sure anyway. I manage to catch his arms and flap as hard as I can, but now we’re both falling, still too fast.  
Toki swoops underneath us and grabs his feet, and finally we level out. Even with his help we can’t gain any altitude. Going to the ground seems like a bad idea, we’d never make it back up, but there doesn’t seem to be much choice!  
A flash of gold, and Skwisgaar is beneath me. “Gives him to me, Nathan!”  
I let go and he catches hold, and slowly, very slowly, they begin to rise toward our rooftop. I don’t know if they can make it, but they’re the strongest fliers out of all of us.

I fly up and land, ready to grab him when they get close enough.  
They _finally_ make it, but they’re clearly exhausted. I grab Charles and pull him over the side. He’s not awake.   
Toki drops, but catches the edge with his hands.   
Skwisgaar manages a little better, landing half on the roof and rolling himself the rest of the way.  
Murderface pulls Toki over, and everyone is safe. Well, back on the roof anyway.  
They lay as they’ve landed, their breathing so harsh it sounds painful and wings splayed.  
I have no idea how they managed to do it, that was _way_ too much weight. I hope they’ll be okay.

I turn my attention to Charles. The shaft is high on the left side of his chest, or does that part count as shoulder? I have no idea. It went all the way through though, sticking out his back. I drag him away from the edge and lower him to his side, having no idea what to do. “Pickles, help me!”  
“I’m nawt a doctor! At least I don’t think I am...” He kneels beside us, looking as lost as I feel.  
“Let me schee.” Murderface studies the wound. “Nathan, prop him up, lean him againscht your chescht. It’sch better if he’sch not flat. I need....” He makes a face, maybe running through options in his head. “Picklesch, remember thosche beesch we schaw back there? Go get schome honey, that will work.”

“Why me? There’s _bees_ there!”  
“Becausche they-“ he gestures to Toki and Skwisgaar, who are still limp and panting heavily, “are too worn out to fly right now, and I need Nathan to help me, and I’m not schure if he can fly either anyway. Juscht go, you probably won’t get schtung too bad.”  
Pickles still doesn’t look happy about it, but he grabs one of the cups we’ve been using, hops off the edge, and flies away.  
“Murderface, do you have any idea what you’re doing? How do you know this stuff?”  
“I don’t know. I wisch I could reaschure you, but I don’t know. I juscht know I can’t take the arrow out until he getsch back, and that the honey schould prevent infection.”

I’m worried about those two, but I can’t take care of everybody ay once! “Toki, Skwisgaar, you guys okay over there?” Toki, still face down, doesn’t respond, but Skwisgaar raises one hand partway and forms a poor excuse for an ‘okay’ sign. “Murderface, check on Toki while we’re waiting?”  
He gets up and goes to him. Making some decision, he folds one wing in well enough to roll him over on his back. His breathing sounds better instantly, so I guess that was the right thing to do?  
“He schould be okay, but I don’t think either of them will be ready to fly again really schoon.”  
“Well Charles can’t either, and we can’t carry him, so I guess we’re all stuck here? For now?”  
“Looksch like.”

Pickles comes back quickly, swooping up and landing. He staggers a little, but holds onto the full glass of honey he carries. Multiple stings mar his exposed skin. “Gat it. I can’t git tha stingers out, my damn claws won’t werk thet way.” He looks completely miserable.  
“We’ll help you in a minute, Picklesch. Firscht I need to get thisch arrow out.”  
“Okie.” He sits off to the side, slumping.  
Murderface goes to our pile of stuff and pulls out a rag. He looks it over, nods, and rips it in two, folding the pieces.

Back with us, he sets them down beside the glass of honey. I’m not sure how clean that stuff is, but I guess we don’t have a choice.  
“Nathan, I need you to help. Schift him where you can usche one hand. Schit him up if, if he’ll schtay.”  
“Uh, okay.” I push him up carefully and move a little to the side, now my right arm is free. “What do I do?”  
He grasps the arrow and snaps off the point. He dips both the pads he made in the honey, then hands the glass to me. “I need you to pour the honey on the hole asch I pull the arrow out, hopefully it will schuck schome of it inschide.”  
That’s a good thing? But what do I know, so I just nod.

He takes a deep breath, nods to me, and starts slowly pulling the shaft. It went in at an angle, it’s higher in the back than in the front and with they way I’m holding him, almost vertical.  
I drizzle the honey on, making a mess but there’s no other way to do it. The arrow does seem to be sucking some of it in, I hope it’s enough.  
Then it’s out, and Murderface slaps one of the pads on the back hole. He takes the honey from me. “Lay him down now, schlowly.”  
I do, and he drizzles more honey on the chest hole as we move.  
“All the way flat?” He nods, and I lay Charles down.

Murderface leans close, peering at the chest hole.  
“What are you doing?” Why isn’t he putting the other pad thing on? Is something else wrong?  
“Checking for bubblesch. I thought it missched the lung, but I couldn’t be schure. Looksch good though, he wasch lucky.” Then he covers it. “It bothers me that he’sch unconschiousch, but I guessch that’sch bescht for now."  
Pickles looks at us hopefully. “Is it my tern yet?”  
I don’t think I’ll have any better luck pulling the stingers, my claws are huge. Murderface probably can’t do it either. And... Are we done with Charles yet? Don’t we need to keep watching him?

“Nathan, I’ve got Charlesch, you help Picklesch. Pull the schtingersch with your teeth.”  
“Uh, why me?” That sounds like it could actually work though.  
“Becausche my teeth aren’t made for pulling tiny thingsch.” He points to the gap in the center.  
Okay... I’m not at all sure about this but I guess it’s really up to me? I go over to where Pickles is sitting and decided to start with one in his shoulder. I try to bite one but I keep missing, the stingers are so damn tiny! “I don’t think this is working.”  
“Dood, use yer lips or yer tongue to find ‘em, then you can grab ‘em. Jest get ‘em outta me!”  
“Uh, okay?” I’m a little creeped out by this, but I lean in again and cautiously poke my tongue at the stinger. He’s right, I can feet right where it is, like a tiny thorn. Carefully I grasp it in my teeth and pull, spitting it to the side. That wasn’t so hard! One down.... I don’t even want to count. I get them all out though.

All this time we’ve been looking for people, and when we find one he shoots at us? That high up, was he _hunting_ us? What if he tries again? What if he brings more people? There’s probably more of them in there, hiding, right now!  
I know we should get out of here but we can’t, not until Charles is better. That’s going to take time, too much time. We’re fucking trapped!  
It’s okay, we’re on the highest building and there’s no way up on the inside. They can’t get to us.

But they know we’re up here. And they shot Charles. I stand up. “I’m going to kill him.”  
“No dood, they’re prahb’ly jest scared of us. Leave ‘em alone. Besides, I’m pritty sure thet guy is long gahn now.” Poor Pickles, at least he doesn’t seem to be reacting too badly to the stings. I mean they’re not swelling much, I’m sure they fucking hurt.  
He’s right though, we’ve spent all this time looking for people, regular people, maybe I shouldn’t just kill them all. And I guess being like they are is why they’re still alive? Charles only wanted to talk to them! Stupid humans.  
We used to be human.   
Funny, I only just now realized that.

And our names... I’m not even sure the others have noticed that we’ve all switched. There was just something about seeing Charles get shot like that, it knocked them loose in my mind I guess. And it wasn’t just me, it’s like we’ve been through this before... deja vu, right? But I can’t remember any details. But yeah, we all knew each other well, I think this proves it.  
Who were we?! It’s right there, just where I can’t reach it! As far as I can tell from what we can do, I think we were all just regular people but regular people don’t get put in pod things.  
All this thinking is getting me nowhere.

I’m standing on the edge keeping watch when Murderface comes over to me. “We need food. Thosche two can’t fly, and I’m not even aschking Picklesch. Juscht keep an eye on everybody until I get back.”  
But what if they need something? I don’t know doctor stuff! “I’ll go.” I can manage to catch something if I have to.  
“No offenche, but I’m not schure you schould be flying yet either, I’m not even schure you _can_. You probably schtrained schomething catching Charlesch like that.”  
Now that he mentions it, I am pretty sore. I didn’t really notice with everything going on.

“Schit!” Murderface smacks his forehead. “We didn’t refill the water bucket earlier! I guessch I’ll do that firscht...”  
Pickles stands up. “I’ll do it, there’s nothin’ wrong with my wings. Yeah it’s gonna take me a few extra trips, but I can handle it. It’s nawt thet far.”  
“Uh, we still have cans. You don’t have too go hunt, we can eat those.”  
He just shakes his head. “You know I’m a terrible hunter, we need to schave the cansch in casche I don’t catch anything.”  
Yeah, that makes sense. “Well, good luck then?”  
“Thanksch.” He walks to the edge and jumps, flying away.

Pickles grabs one of the buckets we use to carry water up here. Toki and Skwisgaar usually fill two at once, but I know Pickles can only handle about half of what they can. Well, normally can, right now I’m not sure they can even stand up.  
“Are you sure it doesn’t hurt too much? The stings?”  
“There’s only thirteen of ‘em, I was counting, yeah thet’s a lawt but I’ll be fine. And besides, ther’re nawt on my wings.” He takes off, heading toward our main building instead of the closer water source we’ve been using. That’s probably smart, we have no idea where the people are, there could be more of them anywhere.

Charles is still sleeping. Okay I know he’s technically unconscious, but I prefer to think he’s sleeping. But he seems all right for the moment, so I go over to check on the other two.  
Skwisgaar is sitting up, and he looks like hell. “How dids we does it, Nathan? Dat was too much weights, dere’s no way we shoulds has been able to does dat.”  
“I don’t know, maybe it’s like chicks lifting cars off babies?” I never understood how babies were getting under cars in the first place, did they run over them or something?  
“I don’t t’ink wings work like dat, amns’t not’ing to pushes against but de airs.” He sighed. “You has no ideas how much I hurts rights now.”  
“Yeah, I don’t feel so hot myself.” 

I look over at Toki, who’s still flat on his back. “Toki, you alive?”  
“Noes.” He doesn’t even open his eyes.  
“Okay, just checking.”  
Pickles comes back, and brings the water straight to Skwisgaar, who drinks. He moves to Toki and taps him on the knee. “Cahm on, sit up and drink. You’ll feel better.” He holds out his hand to help.  
Toki takes it, letting Pickles pull him up even though I can tell it hurts. He drinks too, and passed the bucket to me.  
“I’m gonna go git another one now, You know I don’t like ta fly after dark.” He empties the rest into our big bucket and is gone again.

“Nathan? I’s cold agains.” Poor kid, he’s still always getting cold.   
But that’s something I can actually do something about, so I don’t mind. I move to sit beside him and try to wrap my wing around him, but it hurts too bad to extend it. Wow, I really stiffened up fast! “Sorry. Just pull it around you like a blanket, it’s not working so good right now.”  
Skwisgaar gets up, a little shaky but on his feet, and goes over to look at Charles.  
“Hey, how’s he doing?”  
He shrugs. “Still breathsing.” He sits beside him, apparently to watch.  
I guess that’s good enough for now. Pickles comes back, we should have enough water for at least the night now.

“Dood, spare a wing fer me?”  
“Sure, but they’re not working right, you have to do it like a blanket.”  
He sits on my other side and grabs a handful of feathers, pulling my wing around him. “Thanks fer helpin’ me earlier, I know thet was kinda weird fer you.”  
“It’s okay. I mean, somebody had to do it. At least I was useful?” I’m not very good at this kind of thing.  
“Knowin’ Murderface, it’s gonna be a while. You wanna wait up here or go in?”  
Yeah, the stuff Murderface hunts only comes out at night. “I’d rather wait for him, if you guys aren’t too cold? And I don’t know if we should move Charles.”  
Toki sounds half asleep, muttering against my side. “I’s fine here.” Pickles just nods.

*****

It’s only been two weeks, but even Charles is flying again. We’re back in the woods house, after living on what Murderface and Pickles could bring home we were all ready for a change of diet. I get a deer the first day back, it’s good to be hunting again.  
After being up high for so long I’m a little nervous to be on the ground, but I think we’re safe enough here. We know people don’t come here because there were still cans left, and we haven’t seen any sign of the zombies in this area. We’re keeping watch at night anyway. Sleep is good, but peace of mind is better. 

One night I see the wolves, we knew they were around because we’ve heard them and found tracks, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen them. I’m just sitting out on what used to be a porch keeping watch, and there they are over near where we dump bones and stuff. They’re not doing anything, just sitting and watching me back.  
We’ve had no problems with wolves since that first time, and I’m not feeling threatened by these. After a while they get up, select some bits from our bone pile, and fade off into the trees.  
We’ll have to watch out for them, especially if we’re off alone, but I really don’t think they intend to hurt us. It’s just a feeling, but I’ve learned to trust those.

A few days later there’s trouble. We’ve only been keeping watch at night, and this damn zombie makes it almost all the way to the house before anybody sees it. It’s a scout, we have to kill it or it will bring others and we’re game to them.  
We’ve never even tried to kill one of these, we try not to have any contact with them at all. My instincts tell me not to get anywhere near it, but it has to be stopped. I motion for the others to stay quiet, it hasn’t seen us yet, creep off toward the trees. I need a branch or something, no way am I killing this things with my bare hands.

I’m not as quiet as I think I am, it notices me and charges with a scream. I run, there’s nothing else I can do, the trees are too close here for me to be able to fly away. I think it’s going to catch me! I know I need to kill it but I can’t, not without some sort of weapon! I feel it grab at my wings, I think I lost a couple feathers but it doesn’t manage to hold on. It’s too close, I’m fucked!  
I’m almost to the stream, I jump off the bank and turn. I have to fight it or let it bring me down, there’s no other options. It leaps for me!

They hit it in midair, knocking it off course and tearing into it as it hits the ground. The wolves! The whole pack is here, and they’re tearing the zombie apart. It’s not screaming now, I think it’s already dead. I stand very still, not sure if I’m safe from them or not.  
Once they’re satisfied it’s really dead, they back off and sit facing me like they did the other night. So it’s okay then? The wolves are somehow our allies? That’s kind of awesome.  
I think I’ll sleep better now, knowing something else out there is watching out for us.

We’ll have to go back into the city when we’ve all rested up and finished recovering, there was so much more we never got around to checking. We need to keep finding what food we can, and anything else that we can use.  
And then there’s the people, we know for sure they’re there in there somewhere now. They all still want to meet with them.  
I don’t care what they say about people, yeah I want to find them too, but only to kill them all. We’ve met two and they both tried to kill us, fuck that.  
I’ve decided that people are bad now too.


	6. Go Forth and Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People, finally you get real people and some answers. Not all the answers though, but there’s a little supplemental I’ll post next that explains most of the stuff that isn’t really covered here. You know, in case you want things explained. Yeah this is the last real chapter.

We’re back at our original base building, we know this area is relatively safe. Of course we still have a lot of ground to cover, but we’ll just keep coming back here instead of staying anywhere more central. Charles is all better now, he’s got a new scar not too far above his old one, but otherwise you’d never even know he got shot.  
The good part about staying here is that nobody has to keep watch at night, the bad part is still the limited hunting. I’m tempted to see if I can break a deer into small enough pieces to bring up here, but I know without even trying that it wouldn’t work.

We’re scouting around again and I’m hunting for people. I haven’t changed my mind about killing them, but I haven’t said anything more to the others about it.  
Pickles found some bags, they’re made out of woven plastic instead of cloth or something so they’re still strong, plastic really does last forever. We’ve got three of them and they’re our new scavenging bags. The bags are easier to fly with than the buckets, as long as we don’t overfill them. We’re still collecting food and anything else we think we can use, but a lot of stuff just isn’t any good anymore. Knives are rusted, claws are far better.

I find a trash dump building when I’m off on my own one day, I’m not going to tell the others about it. We’ve all agreed to not go to the ground in here, rooftop access or no access, but I’ve been doing it anyway. This building is locked from the roof, but is missing the bottom floor like ones we can find stuff in so I land. There’s a lot of garbage in here, and it’s on top of the fallen debris. Cans, animal bones, some broken bowls, I’m pretty sure this means people. They’re smart if they’re hiding their trash like this, it makes me wonder how many dumps I’ve searched right over top of without even knowing.

I study the ground, looking for any tracks. There are old ones from animals, trash always draws those, but I can’t make out any human prints. I don’t think this is their current dump site anyway, there’s a layer of dust on most of the stuff, but this means there are or were people near here.  
I decide to search the building even though there’s a ladder rigged up in the corner, but I find nothing useful in any of the rooms. The humans must have taken it all already.  
I’ll find them, sooner or later.

*****

Sometimes we all go off together, especially if it’s a large building. We can search through it much faster that way. Or we’ll split up somewhere and search two or three at once.  
This building we’re on isn’t that tall, but we’ve stopped here to decide where to go next. Can’t get in this one, it’s locked, but the one across the street looks promising. And that one over there too... We should have time to go through both of them before we need to head back. Then we’ll be done with this segment.  
A sound suddenly draws our attention, it sounds like a faint voice.

“Hello? Hello up there?” It’s coming from below, and we cautiously look over the edge. An older man is standing in the street, hands cupped around his mouth. He seems to be alone.  
“Hello?” I guess he can’t see us right now, I think the sun’s in his eyes. But he knows we’re up here. He must have seen us land, damnit I never even saw him! “I just want to talk with you! Please come down here! I’m alone! I just want to talk! There’s nobody with me!”  
I want to kill him just for being a person, but if there’s only one then it’s almost pointless, I want the whole fucking nest of them.

“I’m going down.” Charles clearly isn’t thinking like I am. “I’ll check out the situation, see if it’s safe.”  
“Fuck no!” I grab his arm, he doesn’t like that and glares at me but I don’t let go. “I’m not letting you go down there, the last time you went to look you got fucking shot!”  
“Nathan, he’s clearly alone. I’m going to talk to him, now _release me_.”  
“No.” What are you going to do to me, Charles? “For all we know it’s a trap, he’s probably got people hiding all around here.”  
“Dood, we jest randomly landed here, I don’t rally think they could set it up like thet.”  
“Pickles, stay the fuck out of this!” Damnit, he’s making sense though!

Charles sighs. “We’ve been searching for people, now we’ve found one who not only speaks English but wants to talk to us. Now are you going to let me go or am I going to _make_ you let me go?"  
I turn him loose, since he’s not going to listen to me anyway. “And what if they shoot you again? Because saving your ass nearly killed them-“ I motion toward Toki and Skwisgaar, “-and I don’t think they can do it twice!”  
He glances at them but I can see that I didn’t change his mind. “Nathan, I’m going.” And with that he’s over the edge.

We all lean over the side, watching as he lands in the street in front of the guy.  
They’re just talking, we can see that but can’t really hear since they’re not yelling, so we have no idea what’s being said. But nobody else has jumped out and the old guy hasn’t tried anything, that’s good.  
The man is pointing in various directions while he talks, but I notice that Charles never does that. Good, don’t tell him anything about where to find us!  
I try to figure out just where the man is indicating, but without being able to hear it’s impossible.

Meting apparently now over, Charles flies back up to join us. “Well that was interesting. His name is Lambuel, and he claims to know about us from some old stories or legends. He refused to give me any details, he wants to wait and speak to us all together.”  
I’d made a vague plan to try to follow the guy home, stalk him to his nest and kill them all, but I can’t let them know. They don’t understand for some reason, they’ll try to stop me. But before I can slip away, Pickles asks me to go with him to check that building and I can’t think up a quick excuse not to. Fuck!

*****

We’re waiting for the human. I really wish I’d just killed him last time, he could have told anybody about us by now. Yeah he supposedly knows something, but he’s probably lying about that. I mean, that’s what people do, right? Say they have information so you don’t kill them?  
I don’t like all of us being down here on the ground like this, it makes me nervous.  
Here he comes, I think he’s alone? I don’t see anyone else anyway. This one is nothing special to look at, just an older guy in shabby clothes. His hair is pretty short and mostly grey, okay up close he’s not as old as I thought, probably about fifty. I don’t care.  
I wanted more than one, but that’s not going to stop me from killing this one that’s right here.

As I step forward to slash his throat, Pickles jumps in front of me, wings out. “Nathan, stawp!”  
Fuck, I haven’t been hiding this as well as I’d thought! I could shove him aside, he’s not very big, but now Charles and Skwisgaar are backing him up. “Nathan, calm down, we need to hear what he has to say! It could be important.”  
“Fine!” I cross my arms and glare at the man, I’ll listen but I don’t have to like it! It annoys me that they’re all so eager to hear it.  
“Guys, this is Lambuel, he’s an ambassador.”  
“You may call me Lamb.” He’s studying us with a look that’s almost wonder, like we’re gods or something.  
Charles nods. “Please tell us all what you know.”

“You are the Old Ones from the prophecy, yes?” Why is he addressing me? That’s weird.  
“Prophecy? Uh, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I don’t like that word, that word means bad things. Somehow.  
“Yes, it must be you, it can only be you. The sleeping Dragon that rides on the clouds, and the Old Ones who will hatch from its belly. I always believed it to be just a story, but then I saw the Dragon. A fossil made of stone, it flew toward the mountains as silent as death and I knew that its time must be near.”  
“Huh. Well that’s kind of cool I guess, what else did they say?” Damnit, he has me interested now! Dragon? That’s familiar... Okay, so I’ll kill him later.

Lamb goes on. “It is spoken that the Old Ones brought death and destruction everywhere that the Dragon landed. People would come from far, far away to see the Old Ones, and many of those would perish. Blood soaked the land where the sacrifices were received, and they were known by the name of Death.”  
“We ams Deth?” Skwisgaar’s clearly thinking like me, that it’s somehow right but it’s not.  
"Death that once ruled the world, before the world in turn died.” Lamb nods as if he knows what the fuck he’s saying. “And the five Gods of Death that flew through the sky.”  
Wait, _five_? But there’s six of us... and _gods_?

“I wanted to see you all for myself. And I am old, if you kill me it will not be any great loss.”  
“Uh, we’re not going to kill you.” Okay I did really want to kill him very recently, but I just changed my mind. So I can pretend it didn’t happen? Maybe later though...  
“We do not know what you will do. You come from the Old World, the one that destroyed itself. I have even heard that it was all your faults, a final massive sacrifice. There was a saying, if legends are correct, ‘Die for death’ they would chant as they died.”  
“Tha good news is, we’re sahrry?”  
“Pickles, shut up. We didn’t do this, whatever happened.” At least I don’t think we did?  
Charles is shaking his head, no we didn’t do this.

“It’sch our turn now. How many people are there?” Good question, I want to know that too.  
“There are three groups in this city, though I admit that I have not traveled beyond these walls and know not what lays further. It is dangerous to be in the open.”  
“Was it your people who shot Charles?” I need to know because that was kind of unforgivable, even if this guy says we were gods. Are we still some sort of gods?  
“No it was not my group, but I know of who did. That is how I learned you were here. But do not hold it against them, they were merely frightened.” Lamb seems to have run out of stuff about us. “I will make you a map of a place you can meet with some of my people, I am inviting you all to come there. I will leave it on this box.” He points to a box shaped something, then turns and walks away. We don’t have anything else to say to him right now, so we just let him go.

We fly back up to the roof, none of us like staying on the ground in here.  
I’m remembering things now, he said just enough to make me finally remember some things. “What he said, ‘Die for Death’? That’s not right, almost but not quite. It was ‘Die for Dethklok’, that’s who we were. We were _Dethklok_.”  
“Ja I remembers now dat you reminds us, I has no idea why I don’ts know befores.”  
“Holy schit, you’re right!”  
They’re all nodding now, we know who we were. We remember that much at least.

Charles looks at us. “I remember now. Not everything, but some of it. There was a virus, people thought it was zombies. Nobody could figure out how it was spread, and there was no cure. Our scientists thought the best way to protect you was to genetically alter you with our own virus just enough that you would be an unacceptable host, but all the tests were a failure.” He shrugs apologetically. “I guess they must have figured it out eventually, although you weren’t supposed to grow wings.”  
“And then what, you just thought you’d get changed along with us?” That doesn’t sound like the old Charles I can now vaguely remember.  
“I was never supposed to be included, I have no idea how or why I ended up in that egg. I should be long dead by now.” He looks genuinely upset to be alive.  
“Don’t be scho hard on yourschelf, man.”

He used to be just our manager, we used to give him all kinds of hell. We were such assholes! How did we ever treat him like that, Charles is a cool guy. It’s amazing he doesn’t hate us all for all the bullshit we put him through. I mean fuck, we almost started World War III even and he fixed it, he always fixed it no matter how badly we fucked up.  
But it’s different now, now he’s just one of us. We’re all equal here.  
If some random employee had to end up here with us, I’m glad it was him.

But maybe we really did kill the world? Murderface asks before I can. “Did our guysch make the zombie virusch?”  
“No, no we didn’t. I suspected it was some government agency, but I could never confirm that.” He rubs the bridge of his nose with a knuckle. “Glasses, I used to wear glasses.”  
He did! I’d forgot about that. He seems to see just fine without them now though. “Hey, how come we didn’t know about all of this? The virus stuff?”  
“Well I tried, but none of you were interested in what was going on in the world. I can barely remember much of it myself, so don’t feel too bad.”

“Scho we’re contagious?” Oh good question!  
“Ah, no. That was one of my requirements, we didn’t want a bunch of groupies sprouting wings or whatever. So no, you shouldn’t be contagious.”  
“Can we passch it on?”  
“You mean like to your children? I honestly don’t know, but I suspect the modifications to your DNA will almost certainly make you incompatible with unaltered humans.”  
“Uh, in English?”  
“I doubt you can get anyone pregnant.”  
“Normalsly I says dat’s a good t’ing, but I amns’t so sures now.”

There’s stuff I’m remembering, kind of. “We were supposed to bring on the end of the world or something, not sleep through it." Something like that anyway.  
“Nathan, that isn’t really what the prophecy-“  
“Just stop! It doesn’t matter anymore.” Prophecies, they’re never a good thing. And that was a long time ago, the world apparently ended just fine on its own since then with no help from us.  
Well I guess it ended? Close enough to count?  
I think a bunch of zombies count.

I notice Skwisgaar looking at his hands all funny. “Hey, you okay?”  
“Ja, I ams jus’ remembersing what I used to be ables to does wit’ dese t’ings.” He means his guitar playing, of course.  
“You still could?” I guess? Somehow?  
“Pfft. What I does, find some grampas guitar dat amns’t fireswood yet and den chops off mine claws and starves because I can’ts hunt no mores?”  
“Uh, we’d feed you.”  
“No. I won’ts be helpless.” And that’s clearly the end of that discussion.

It’s weird to suddenly know some stuff. Like we never used to eat raw meat. Well maybe we did once or twice when we were really drunk or high, but that doesn’t count. All this time it’s never occurred to me that meat could be cooked, it was just meat, it was good, and we ate it.  
We used to argue a lot too, over stupid shit. We were rich and spoiled and... Man, we used to be such assholes!  
I think it’s better now, how we all work together and get along. Sure we all have some things we’re better at, but that’s fine, it works.  
It would have been _fucking awesome_ to play a show looking like we do now thought! Well, if they could play with claws anyway. 

*****

Lambuel leaves us directions where he said he would, we don’t see him but we’ve been checking for them daily. Not paper but a piece of cloth, drawn in what is probably soot. Just rough letters, it looks like he was copying something he couldn’t even read, like a logo. He must have picked that building because it has words painted on it, they’re faded but you can still see them. It’s easy to identify, unlike most of the ones around.  
I don’t know what it says on the building, it’s not English and I can’t even guess what it might be, but I can tell that’s what he copied for us to find.  
I guess he means tonight?

A bunch of people all in one place, I probably won’t get a better chance than this. Uh-oh I think I’m letting too much show, because Charles comes up to me looking stubborn.  
“Nathan, don’t attack anyone, I’m serious! No matter what they say or do.”  
“Fine! I won’t kill your stupid humans!” _Yet_.  
“ _Nathan_.” Fucker knows me too well.  
“I said I wouldn’t!” Great now I really can’t do it. I hop over to the next roof to be alone until it’s time to go.

Will we meet them all? I don’t think he ever said how many there were, it’s like he didn’t want us to know that. Probably not all of them, I wouldn’t if I had people. Yeah we’re all going but that’s not the same thing.  
I bet there’s kids, it would be really hard to kill kids. I hadn’t thought about that before. But I don’t want to put some on a roof and have to feed them either, that sucked even before Little Girl turned out to be a fucking zombie. I wonder if she was one of his? I don’t think I’m gonna ask.  
They’re waving at me, I guess it’s time.

*****

We’re meeting them on this neutral rooftop, clearly not one of the buildings they actually live in. I guess they don’t want us to know where they stay, which is smart of them. And of course we feel more comfortable up in the air, if things go badly we can just jump off and be gone. And since they say I can’t kill them, that’s pretty much the only option.  
We all land on the edge and study the group. There’s only about ten of them, all adults, and mostly females. I know there has to be kids, so I guess they left them and the rest of the adults wherever they stay, just in case. They’re studying us right back, and they look scared. It’s really weird seeing regular humans again after all this time. 

Lamb approaches. “Come and sit with us, Most of these present know a little English so you may talk to them. Not all can speak it, but they should be able to understand you well enough.”  
Charles steps toward the group. “Hello. Don’t worry, we won’t harm you.” He shoots me a meaningful look and I roll my eyes, I _said_ I’d behave!  
Lamb is saying something in another language, I have no idea what. Introducing us or something maybe, except how would he know our names? I guess Charles probably told him when they talked before? Or from his old legends?

They go sit near the people, I stay back. I said I’d behave, I never said I’d participate. Murderface hangs back with me, I don’t know if he’s just keeping me company or what but I don’t mind. We watch the others interact with the humans.  
The females, I can’t help but study them. Even in their baggy clothing they look good to me after all this time. Hmm, killing women would be hard too, I hadn’t really thought about that. And they seem to find us interesting, particularly our wings. They can’t seem to quit staring at the others.  
Is it normal for them to bring all these chicks, or are they trying to bribe us? I don’t trust them.

Skwisgaar gets up and comes back to us. “Dey has ladies, this amn’st so bads. You knows, de guitar wasn’t de only t’ing I was goods at.” He winks at us and goes back, sitting in a new spot between two of the females. They both focus on him, stroking his wings and touching his chest and arms.  
Well fuck, he knows that’s one thing that would make me change my mind about wanting to kill them. He started it, but now other females are paying attention to all of the others, even Charles! None of the men seem to be objecting, so I guess it’s okay?  
I’m tempted to join them, but still I resist.

Murderface is watching them with a look of longing, he seems sad. “They won’t want me, I’m juscht the bassch player. Look at me.”  
He’s not a bass player anymore anyway. “Yeah, look at you. You’ve got wings too, and you’re you know, in really good shape now. Not like you used to be. There’s no reason they won’t want you.” I shake my head. “Well that sounded really gay.”  
“Yesch is did, but thanksch anyway.” He makes no move to go over there though, we just keep watching them.

I’m still not convinced this isn’t some sort of trap. One girl, she’s practically sitting in Toki’s lap now, grabs a bag and pulls out an bottle of something, handing it to him. Are they trying to poison us? Is that it? I watch closely, I know Toki has good instincts so if it’s poison he should be able to smell it or something.  
He opens it and sniffs it carefully, then takes a drink. “Oh wowee, they gots booze!”  
What?! They’re bribing us with women and alcohol, that’s not fair! Toki passes the bottle around and they all drink from it.  
Pickles is grinning like I haven’t seen since... Since before all this happened, booze and a girl hanging all over him and he’s happy.

Toki waves to us. “Nathan, Moiderface! We’s gots goils and booze, gets over here!”  
“Ja, you guys ams missings out! But you knows, more for de rests of us.” Skwisgaar already has two women, but I know he wouldn’t mind more.  
I look at Murderface and he shrugs, fuck I guess we join them then. It’s not that I don’t want booze and women, because I _really_ fucking do, it’s just that I don’t trust these people. We walk over and sit, whoa these chicks were just waiting for us I guess! One scoots right over to me, and Murderface has one too, she’s tracing his tattoos. Poor guy, he doesn’t look sure what to make of this yet.  
Charles passes me the bottle and I drink, it’s some sort of homemade wine. Not bad at all actually. I pass it to Murderface.

Before I get too distracted here... “Hey Lamb! What is it you want here?” They’re definitely bribing us so they must want _something_. And why am I the only one concerned?  
“We can help each other. You like women, yes?”  
Of course I fucking like women, now what’s the catch? “Yeah, and?”  
“Hunting is very dangerous for us, we would like to have your assistance.” He notices my expression. “No I am not asking you to provide, but even just one of you in the air to tell us where the wild ones are would go far toward helping us avoid them. Far too many of my people have been killed or infected outside the walls, but we must have food so there is no choice.”

That’s all? They just want us to scout for them? “Huh. Why are you asking me?”  
Lamb pulls out a second bottle and passes it my way. “I can see that you are their leader, if you agree then they will go along.”  
Well I am the only one putting up any resistance... It seems like we’d be getting the best of the deal by far, but I remember him saying that in his stories we’re some kind of gods. I can live with that. They’ve given us a taste of how working with them will be, and I think it’s safe to say that we all like it. And we have our wings so we can always fly away if we need to, there’s really no way to lose here that I can see. I make up my mind.  
“Yeah okay, we’ll do it.”


	7. (supplemental)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *This is not a chapter*  
> This explains a lot of the things they never figured out in the story, read it if you like answers. I know some of you like to know things, and I had a lot more back story than I managed to work into the fic.  
> There’s no narrator for this part, it’s just me telling you some stuff. Don’t try to justify any of this with real science, you’ll only hurt your brain.

**The past:**

It started in 2012, a few scattered attacks that seemed completely unconnected. The “people getting naked and eating parts of other people” kind of stuff, you’ve seen the news. The one in Miami was the most publicized, but there were several out there. Drugs were blamed in the beginning of course, even after the attackers tested clean. Rumors spread that it was the beginning of the Zombie Apocalypse, though officials were quick to discredit such tales.

The first real outbreak came about a year later when groups of people all over the world suddenly turned violent. Many were killed outright, many more were detained. There were rumors that it was a Government experiment that had gotten loose, others said it was a natural mutation of something benign. Neither theory could be proved. 

Now named Dahmer due to the cannibalistic tendencies it caused, the virus continued to spread despite all efforts to contain it. One large hurdle was that no one knew how many ways it could be spread, prior contact with bodily fluids wasn’t present in every case. The incubation period was distressingly long, usually a full month, and most victims showed no symptoms before then, nor did it show up on a blood test until it was too late. When it finally hit it moved super fast. The early symptoms (when there even were any) mimicked the common cold, leading quickly to verbal outbursts and then unprovoked violence.

The Dahmer virus caused minor genetic changes in it’s victims, but the effect was obvious. Victims were feral, animalistic, and would attack and eat anything they could catch, including humans. They retained basic speech, but it was at more of a caveman level. Their way of moving was different, in a vague “there’s something very wrong with that person” way, though they were capable of surprising speed when in pursuit. It was impossible to ever truly confirm, but one theory was that it erased their higher brain functions. 

Mordhaus was lifted back into the sky when the first outbreak was reported, and their group of scientists conducted independent research on the virus. Since it was known to make changes on the cellular level, a vaccine was hopeless. Instead the idea was to subtly alter the genetic code of the band in order to protect them from infection. Many species were tested, nothing non-human seemed to be affected but some could carry the virus. They discovered that the most resistant were types were avian and reptile. Thinking that birds were the better choice since they’re both warm blooded and bipedal on the ground, they concentrated their efforts on discovering what parts of the DNA they could use that would cause the least side effects. The idea was to create an immune Dethklok, not a different one.

They used a simple inert virus to deliver the new material and spread it, system-wide takeover could be achieved in as little as two weeks, though the side effects usually showed up sooner.

Early testing on volunteer Klokateers was a disaster, the first one sprouted feathers all over his body in only a week. He also lost his ability to speak, and seemed functionally retarded. Much more research was done, with varying results. None that met their standards, but they had lots of potential test subjects and they kept tampering with the formula.

Even though they’re been safely in the air all this time, less than a year later Mordhaus somehow suffered and outbreak of Dahmer. Since they knew birds didn’t carry it, the culprit was thought to be insects or possibly even contaminated food.   
The pods had been created years before as a precaution, but when things started getting bad it seemed safest to put the band in stasis until the crisis had passed. The bird strain hadn’t been perfected yet, but it was decided that it was too late for further testing. Dahmer had come to Mordhaus, and they could already be incubating it. They were all injected with the avian mix and placed in their newly labeled pods.

There were ten pods all together. The original idea if they needed to use the pods was to select groupie volunteers and put them in the spare pods so the band would have women in some unknown future (you know how they bitch when they can’t have their sluts), but when everything started falling apart that plan was scrapped.

Ofdensen was not supposed to be included. He was bitten a few days later during a struggle to detain the latest Dahmers, and ordered himself killed for everyone’s safety. The scientists agreed, but injected him with anesthetic instead and quickly gave him the gene therapy. He was also placed in a pod. They were counting on the faster acting bird virus to prevent the Dahmer from being able to take hold, and if they turned out to be wrong, they could kill him later.

The Mordhaus power system was reworked to be able to self-power for 100 years. The Dahmer was still spreading and it was impossible to know how long the uninfected could hold out. Without maintenance though, systems might fail sooner, or they might work better than expected.

Eventually there were no employees left, and it just flew around randomly on autopilot.

 

**Present day, year unknown:**

Civilization as we knew it is long gone. Countries and nationalities ceased to matter long ago when survivors banded together with whoever they could find, and due to the warlike conditions, record keeping soon ceased. Languages broke down, groups developing their own blends and isolation refining them into many separate languages that were only understood in their own clans. There are a few humans left with some ability to speak English (or another original language), and often they are the storytellers who keep the legends alive. They are rare, and not every clan has one. They are the ambassadors who try to rejoin humanity, though they often are rewarded with only death. The humans are hostile and very suspicious of strangers.

Even in the same city, the groups mostly hide from each other. Resources are scarce, and they don’t want anybody to steal what they have. They do use fire, but only at night when the smoke can’t be seen, and only “indoors.” They all have places on the top floor that have been altered for fires, with no windows and often cracks in the roof. Since there is a lot of old fire damage throughout the city, if Dethklok landed on one of these buildings they wouldn’t have thought anything of it.

Humans stay in the cities, and make hunting expeditions out into the surrounding area. These are always a huge risk, but they have no choice since there’s very little game in the city. Hunting parties are prone to ambush by bands of Dahmers, and most trips produce at least some casualties.

The Dahmers are still around and have been breeding for generations, they probably outnumber the humans by a good margin. They are highly territorial and very unkempt, hair and beards are not cut or combed. They don’t bathe, and only venture into water when necessary. The don’t wear clothing, and tend to be lean and stringy. They can live in small packs, but if two groups meet they will fight.

The Dahmers rarely come into the city since they have no interest in man made things. Some will occasionally follow humans back in, but they generally stick to the woods.  
Dethklok calls them zombies and the humans call them wild ones, since none of them remember the official name.

The last cannery that was still operating simply color coded their products to rise above the language barriers. Red was meat, green was vegetable, and yellow was fruit. There were no specifics, whatever kind they had went in the cans, often a mix. Some of these cans still exist where humans haven’t found them yet. They are old, but still safe to consume. The Dahmers show no interest in them since they only eat fresh meat.

When the systems finally failed, Mordhaus crash landed on a cliff. Maybe it made it the full 100 years, maybe it failed sooner, or maybe it lasted far longer than expected, there’s no way to know since our calendar no longer exists either. It’s also unknown what continent they are even on, but the climate is fairly mild.

The Dethklok bird virus worked out better than its creators could have hoped, although wings and talons weren’t part of the plan. Beyond the wings and claws, their appearance was still completely human and their brain function seemed unaltered. Internally, their vision is much sharper (Charles doesn’t need glasses anymore) and most of their senses are enhanced. They also have a bird of prey’s ability to eat and safely digest raw meat. This is good, because it doesn’t even occur to them to somehow cook it.

Yes, claws that cut like knives doesn’t necessarily seem possible, but hey it’s my story and I wanted them super sharp.

All the physical changes occurred during the first two weeks of stasis while they were under supervision, and they remained completely unchanged after that. In case nobody picked it up in the story, they now lack body hair and their facial hair and head hair doesn’t grow anymore.

Their wings are on the small side, so although they can fly, they’re severely limited in how much weight they can carry. The wings repel water for the most part, like a duck or a swan, this is an unexplained side effect but a handy one. They can use them as umbrellas of a sort when it rains and not get completely soaked.

Using honey to prevent infection isn’t something I made up, it’s actually very effective. (You can look it up.) I was just thinking that Murderface would be the most likely to know of it.

The amnesia is mostly caused by being in stasis so long, and partly by the changes that occurred with the bird virus. Everything from about a year prior to the process is lost forever, though they will eventually regain most everything else.

So I sort of reinvented yard wolves, because they’re Dethklok. It makes sense though, the wolves don’t have a problem with them and enjoy getting the scraps from their kills, so they consider them honorary pack members that should be protected.

There’s only somewhere around 100 humans total in this city, split into three groups that don’t really interact. Lambuel travels between them some and is the only real communication they have with each other.

I have no idea what city this could be, my brain invented it and it’s like none I’ve even heard of but I guess it could exist somewhere. It’s fairly isolated, you can’t see the next city from there. The main part is pretty much all apartments, multi family dwellings, and businesses. There are widely scattered small farms outside the city, like the one they’re using as a base.  
The side their woods house is on, there’s no regular residential section. It’s now just woods and fields right up to where the buildings start. The other side of town (that you never see) does have areas of old single family dwellings.

I don’t know how many Dahmers are in the area, they tend to stay in packs of no more than 20 or so (not counting the kids) and they’re semi-nomadic which makes them hard to count. There’s probably around a few hundred out there in the general vicinity.

Humans who come down with the virus, either through a bite or whatever mysterious way it spreads, are either killed or cast out. Well, if it’s a bite they usually take/send them out of the city to eventually join a pack, if it’s a surprise they’re killed for the safety of the others. Little Girl was bitten, but with the long incubation period, the bite had healed by the time Skwisgaar brought her home. Her family may have kept her longer and only sent her away when she was in range to become dangerous.

No Dethklok can’t breed with humans, Charles was right about that. They can certainly sleep with them though. They’re now immune to all diseases carried by humans, so there’s no real downside here.  
They are of course immune to the Dahmers as well, if that wasn’t clear. _They’re_ not sure of it though, so they still avoid them. And also because they would be killed and eaten if they really got caught.

It’s a post apocalyptic world, but they now have it pretty good. They have people and they’re not alone anymore. No I’m not going to write any more of this story. 

 

**The Future**

Just some things my brain decided happen, for those who are curious. They live with Lamb’s group, but occasionally go off on their own for periods of time. They like to go spend time at their house in the woods, they’re still more at home out hunting than in the city.

The humans for whatever reason see them as lucky, and don’t mind them sleeping with any of the women. They’re not really considered gods or anything, but they’re special. (Yes, even Charles and Murderface.) Some of them, the ones who are into that sort of thing, do eventually develop relationships with some of the women.

Birds tend to live a fair amount of time, so their original life spans are likely unaltered.  
And when they get too old, the people will care for them.

And they’re not _Dethklok_ anymore, they remember who they used to be but they’re different now.

 

*If I didn’t cover something you wanted to know, ask. I probably have an answer.*


End file.
